Can wife be turned into a tidy as they cook person?

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My lovely partner and I share out house work fairly evenly. She does most of the laundry, we do about half the life admin and half the cleaning each. I do most of the cooking, but she makes the odd meal as well as sometimes doing breakfast for the kid and making herself snacks etc.

And every time she gets in the kitchen she is SOOO so so messy and wasteful. I’m talking loaves of bread with one slice cut left out to go stale, mayonnaise covered spoons plonked down on clean surfaces, packets thrown back into cupboards in a way that means they are guaranteed to fall into the head of the next person to open them, everything left out of the fridge to spoil, six pans used to make pasta and then left all over the worktops to “soak.” It’s like the second she starts eating her food she becomes blind to the mess she’s made… and I genuinely don’t think she can help it, she’s just made that way and acknowledges it’s not ideal!

I’m a tidy as you cook sort of person, always have been and always leave the kitchen clean before going to bed, don’t waste food etc. - just the way I was raised. I have plenty of my own flaws of course (any tips on remedy to put away clothes gratefully received)

So my genuine question is, can she somehow become a tidy as you cook person (and if so how, I don’t want to just nag but I also don’t want to just do it all). Or is it a fixed thing and I’m condemned to a life of following her around putting things away and getting food poisoning?

Lighthearted

I'm like this and suspect it's because I get a bit stressed/inpatient in the kitchen and lose focus. Something distracts me whilst doing all the little bits and chaos ensues.

I think the first step is recognition of the problem. then maybe someone there to point out where you're about to get distracted/make a mess whilst you're preparing food (obviously the person causing the mess would need to agree to this or it would be seriously annoying!). And repeat until things improve.

Sometimes I wonder if I should video myself to see where it all goes wrong 🤔

I don’t think there is a way, whilst cooking at least. I am a messy and chaotic (but v good) cook. My wife (I am female too BTW 😂) , is a very very tidy cook. Basically the rule is, I always clear up! She cooks more frequently and because she cleans and washes up as she goes, it is fairly quick to clean up.

If I cook, she gets ranty about my chaos, so I clear up after myself, so essentially, I do all the washing up etc (no dishwasher here).

Funnily enough, I am much more thorough then her; if she does clean up, eg if I am out, she washes up but will continue using not very clean water, and she doesn’t properly clean the surfaces/ splash backs /sink/hob etc, whereas I change dishwater as needed, wash glasses first and leave the kitchen sparkling!

But returning to your original question, I think some people just don’t have the brains to multi task in that way.

Yea I think it might be a combination of her not being a multi tasker and not having the patience to finish off the boring bit of cooking (cleaning up) once she’s able to do the fun bit (eating).

I can spend an hour very focused on making a batch of tomato sauce, a pot of soup and a tagine, and leave the kitchen clean at the end of it, and she might spend the same amount of time making jacket potatoes and a salad and leave three sopping chopping boards, the oven on, a trail of tuna oil on the work surfaces and having opened new jars of mayonnaise etc because she didn’t think to check if there were already ones open.

It’s probably just the way we’re wired! She’s brilliant at many other things

I hate this kind of behaviour. My ex was like this, and I just found it a bit pathetic that he had to create something amazing and be all cheffy (in his eyes) but couldn't tidy up after himself (and we had a dishwasher). I have no tolerance for this kind of selfish behaviour. If my partner wants to cook (and he cooks a lot) he has to tidy after himself or he's not actually welcome in my house.

Your wife sounds like a pita. But cos she's female everyone is concentrating on your clothing habits because can't criticise the wife in any domestic situation 🙄

and I genuinely don’t think she can help it, she’s just made that way and acknowledges it’s not ideal!

Stop making excuses for a supposedly grown adult.

No-one is made that way unless they were made in a pigsty.

Yes it's possible. My mother is a brilliant but very messy cook and I inherited her habits. Then I met my formidable M-i-L. Immaculate food served from a show home of a kitchen that looked like no one had every put a dish on its surface and yet the food was divine. I learned from her to tidy as I go - put peelings straight in the food waste, dirty dishes straight in the dishwasher, wipe the surface after use. I'll never be as tidy as her. You can tell I've cooked but there is always space.

Honestly just leave it. It’s not your job to fix her and it sounds as if you have as many bad habits as she does.

lol watch out OP

Why is it that the majority of comments above are finding fault, nitpicking a single word, trying to gender-stereotype and not actually offering something constructive?

"My wife makes a mess during cooking, is this a nature or nurture thing, how can I improve my situation?" That's it.

I'd say to have her in the kitchen with you and make it a couples thing. That's what we do. One does the majority of the work and the other will tidy with gentle "while I do this, could you wipe the counter so I can get started in the potatoes" sorts of comments. While one is plating up, the other rinses the pans or washes a chopping board etc.

There are little things like putting a saucer down so they have somewhere to rest said dirty spoon, or having a kitchen towel flat on the counter to put peels etc so it can easily be carries to the bin later with no mess... things like that, thatthey might not even be aware if to minimise mess. I'd say initially just 'highlight' alternative approaches.

Sounds like my partner.

I find it baffling – half the time it wouldn’t take any longer to put something down inna neat place rather than in a messy place

I put it down to him subconsciously wanting the world to know he exists, a bit like the equivalent of pissing up a wall

WTF?

😆

I’m the tidy one, DH the messer.

So with that being said, in our house you cook and then clean up after yourself.

.

I used to be like that, as I've done more cooking I'm getting better at it and putting stuff away as soon as I use it instead of leaving it out. Problem is dh and I used to be the same, so now he's annoying me, and also giving me implicit permission to slide back into my ways of ill repute. It's a slippery slope paved with tea bags, open cartons of milk and a succession of tea spoons.

I found that I can only tidy as I cook when the dishwasher is reasonable empty. As it‘s DH‘s responsibility to sort out said dishwasher, it‘s up to him to ensure the kitchen is decent when I cook (and I cook 6 out of 7 nights).

I hate when he comes and tidies stuff away I still need. I don‘t want to use several spoons/knives for the same reason, I re-use them.

A smaller kitchen than we had before does help a bit but it also depends what I cook. If I throw a tray bake into the oven = kitchen is tidy. A stir fry = not so much as I don‘t have the time.

The only thing I do tidy away properly are packages as we don‘t have a lot of storage and things need to be properly stored to make the most of the space.

Not a very feminist question! Does the fact that my wife is a woman mean she is obviously a domestic drudge who is shouldering the mental load in silence and being gaslit by her partner because she leaves the odd teaspoon out? No it doesn’t.

Yes most women who are married to men do more than them, but some women ARE messy in the kitchen and they have as much right to be slobs as men do - equal rights for women!!

What else is she doing whilst she is cooking?

I had a partner who would only cook occasionally, as a hobby. I would do the "everyone needs fed" cooking. I wouldn't always be focused on the kitchen whilst I was doing it, as I was often making sure other things were ok, or people. Or washing (clothes) or packing, or ironing on name labels etc etc

Sometimes you just want to sit down

you shouldn't be trying to make your wife into another sort of person. you should communicate with her about the outcome you want. who cares if she is a messy cook? What you need is, for instance: being able to come down in the morning to a clean kitchen. So, the person who cooks cleans, they have to do it, they have to do it before bed. that's all you need.

You don't need an empty and available dishwasher in order to put the bread away, tidy packets of dry goods or do the lid up on the mayonnaise (looking at you dh) 😂

OP do you operate the 'one cooks, the other washes up' method? I recommend it. You can get your own back.

Lol at so many people nitpicking and working out whether the OP is a man or a woman. Who cares? If this thread had been written by someone saying their DH was leaving the kitchen in a state, the replies would be so different.

My DH is the same. We usually cook together I.e you cook the rice and side veg, I cook the curry and naan breads. I've tried to make a point of tidying up around him but he still doesn't get it and will sit down while watching me tidy away. Occasionally when I'm in a bad mood I'll say something and he starts tidying but mostly I just let it go. He has a lot of redeeming features, he's just shit at tidying up after himself.

Perhaps she's aggrieved at doing most of the laundry and doesn't leave the kitchen spotless for fear of being expected to do more of the cooking too.

no no no no no "one cooks the other washes up" is all wrong.
you need to take responsibility (and be granted autonomy) for the whole deal.
when I cook, I use one board, one knife, one or two pans and I get it all in the dishwasher or washed up when the food hits the table. That's my present to me, the free evening I get after dinner and a nice clean kitchen in the morning.

If you prefer to turn cleaning up into a whole job you then have to do, so you don't have to think about it while you are cooking, thats your problem.

Basically you are either a person who sorts things out after using them, or has to sort things out before you use them. I don't want to have to sort things out before I use them, I want to find them ready for use. So I am a sort things out after you use them person. If you live with the other kind of person you are in danger of sorting things out after you use them (out of habit) AND before you use them (because the other person left them like that). This isn't fair.

Different styles are ok but only if they aren't cover for one person making the other do all their work.

Me too
I am a very untidy person cook and it drives dh nuts. He has some very specific non-tidy habits of his own though, so he knows he doesn't really have the moral high-ground.

no no no no no "one cooks the other washes up" is all wrong.

Not on a Sunday it isn't, when I've been in and out of the kitchen all bloody morning. Buggered if I'm doing all the clearing up as well. And no, we don't have a dishwasher.

She sounds like me, I just can't be tidy as I go along or I lose my thread, something will burn, I'll forget to add a vital ingredient, I can't just look at recipe and do ut, I keep coming back to it over and over again, I even annoy myself!