To get fed up with DH leaving stuff EVERYWHERE!

[ILoatheMickeyMouseClubhouse]

Am I?

DH is a messy person by nature, but he is just taking the piss at the moment. He leaves cups, plates, wrappers and packets wherever he has been using them. Today this meant a half-drunk mug of tea on the dining table, 3 glasses in the living room and about 6 next to his bed, plus 2 crisp packets on the living room floor. Shoes and coats are left wherever he takes them off. Clean clothes and dirty clothes are all in one heap on the bedroom floor. There is a pile on the dining table of his "crap" things like work paperwork, a brochure he ordered, random bills of his etc. Furniture in our bedroom is piled high with things of his that he doesn't put away, everything from his passport to a pair of flip flops of his. He played football last night and his bag complete with a sweaty top thrown on top in in the kitchen, it was smack bang in the doorway this morning.

It's getting now so it really is out of control; I have a young toddler and it's hard enough to do housework as he gets up to allsorts when i'm busy, but in order to clean the house I have to tidy DH's crap away first, it takes ages. I have tried putting everything of his down by his side of the bed, explaining that I needed it out of sight to keep the house tidy and he retaliated by putting loads of clothes by of mine that he'd got out of drawers and cupboards in a heap by my side of the bed, even getting tags out of the bin for a pair of shoes I'd bought and throwing them on there too. He put DS to bed last night and just left the dirty nappy in the bedroom. Wet towels are again just left wherever he is when he finishes using them, whether that's on a living room chair or on the bannister or the hall floor.

I'm totally fed up with it, I'm very assertive and do tell him to put things away but he doesn't and won't. The house just feels like it's a mess ALL the time because he won't put things away. Even our 2 older children keep their rooms reasonably tidy and clean.

Another thing he always does that pisses me right off is as soon as anything needs doing, for example the kitchen needs cleaning after dinner, he goes "to the toilet" and sits on it for 45 minutes playing Angry Birds. He does this sometimes at the kids bathtimes and bedtimes too, just disappears into the downstairs loo. If I say can he be quick as X or Y needs doing, he says "Oh so I'm not allowed to go to the toilet now" and is really childish.

I just don't know what to do; I am a SAHM and am more than happy to do the housework/washing/ironing/cooking but not to be a servant cleaning up all his junk.

my DH is very nearly as bad, maybe not quite. He has made some effort after numerous freak-outs by me, and more calm, rational requests for him to try harder to let us live in harmony.

My biggest peeve has been his refusal to hang up his work trousers - he will drape them neatly over something but not take the blinking 15 seconds to put them on a hanger. I either give in and do it myself, which at least makes him feel stupid, or get him to agree to tidy up all his crap once a week. We've just moved into a new house and all his stuff is hung in the guest room so that has become his lounge of piles, etc. His problem, not mine.

It's so hard when the other person has a much higher mess tolerance. I would definitely just leave the washing up though and things like that, and follow the advice of others who say put all his crap out of sight in a pile and don't touch it again.

Dh's mother fortunately didn't wait on him, but she did allow him to do whatever he wanted and leave a massive mess, so he never learned to do things differently.

I always say people should respect the environment they live in - it's just not respectful to live like a pig in a sty.

GO ON STRIKE! Explain calmly that you can't do it all by yourself and you need help. Leave it at that and don't nag.

Then stop washing his clothes, stop ironing his clothes, if his crap is in your way than put it all in big plastic boxes in his wardrobe. Even go as far as eating early with the kids and when he comes in and asks what's for dinner just say your not that hungry and leave him to it.
I did this and within a week DH had arranged a cleaner and he was getting up half an hour earlier to help more in the mornings.

Men don't understand words, they don't respond to nagging, it's actions that work.

Same. His mother said 'you do realise he's a bit messy don't you?...' before the wedding, but, rose-tinted glasses, eh.

15y later the most best solution has been Consequences and Withdrawal of Labour and the Putting his Stuff in Piles/Boxes. He's doing all his own laundry now, entirely responsible for all his own stuff but anything left in the public areas gets 'tidied' ie chucked in his study with no sorting when it gets blitzed, cleaning the kitchen if he cooks. Same rules for DCs. The ruse is now that he will 'respect my stuff as I respect his' (since he ruined my Le Creuset with dishwasher and wire pan scrub).

If he leaves garden tools out they stay out in the rain and go rusty. He dare not ask 'where is ...?' because he knows I will just laugh or say, 'you left it... so it's ruined, I'm afraid'. If the winter coat's gone musty from not being dried off in the airing cupboard, I say 'oh dear, that coat smells awful, are you getting a new one for work?'

He knows I love it when he can't find matching socks etc and say 'I saw the other one down the back of your desk last year'. It is possible my tone may occasionally be a little superior, even patronising if required, definitely amused.

Sometimes I say to the 'children', 'well we all need to learn to put our toys away, then we're not embarrassed when we have friends round...'

Re the childish Angry Birds in the toilet thing, it's quite fun to point it out later at an inappropriate time, like having a laugh with his mother - in the cold light of day he will look a right prat.

Heh, heh, marriage is such fun. So much pleasure to be had Very good luck with the training... and remember, enjoy it!

Donner's right, I've done the 'we've already eaten, I wasn't sure whether you were eating at work' thing, especially when 'forgets' to tell me what time he's coming home. If he is grateful and appreciative, he gets the full loving service with gravy!

I am much messier than dh. But because I love him, I try hard. While at home on mat leave, I spend a few minutes every day tidying before he comes home. It's bot perfect, but I know he appreciates not coming into chaos. And really, I do like it when it's tidied. Your dh is being astonishingly inconsiderate and childish.

Eventually I realised it was a division of labour thing for us although MickeyMouseClubHouse's husband has started taking the piss. Let's hope he is meeting his responsibilities elsewhere, eg £, car etc, and can be successfully retrained.

One remedy was role-swap for the day under some pretext so he realised how much constant hard work looking after the DCs + washing + cooking + cleaning actually is, how depressing other people's mess is. That said, DC2 had a nasty bang on the head from falling off the rockery when I came back, so I didn't do it again.

Endured mess and servitude until DCs got to school age, then went back to p/t work, then redefined domestic boundaries according to my rules.

It isn't about the mess, it is about control.

Divison of control? She wants him to clean the kitchen while she sorts out DCs at bedtime and he does the sitting in the toilet thing. Exactly what my early teens do when I tell them to sort out their washing. He needs to grow up and be a man.

She has already tried "retraining" (vomit - how can you fancy a human you have to treat like a dog?) him, and he responded in a spiteful, aggressive way that made it crystal fucking clear that the person who is being trained here is her.

She is being trained that it is her job to skivvy after her lord and master, no matter how badly he treats the place, or how filthy his habits.

'So you think I'm your mother, or perhaps a hired help? Well you won't be wanting sex with me then, naturally...'

No, seriously. I would be all for the talk and the discussion, but if his reaction to you collecting up his crap and making the point that he was acting like a pigslob was to GET YOUR TIDY, PUT AWAY, NON-MESSY stuff OUT of cupboards and throw it on the floor... then it's a far, far bigger problem.

Brisk sit down chat. I'm sick of it. It means you don't respect me, and without respect there is no love. What do you want to do - your choice: start to learn not to be a big stinking unattractive slob, or start the clock ticking toward a month's deadline for Relate, then separation.

Dead straight face - he laughs - 'Oh as if you mean it.'

You book Relate and tell him you're making a solicitors appointment. And you do exactly that. IT WON'T CHANGE OTHERWISE - HE SIMPLY DOESN'T NEED TO UNLESS YOU MAKE THIS A DEALBREAKER.

And you keep saying - I'm still young, I don't have to live with being unhappy, I don't have to live with the kind of casual disrespect this shows for me. Your behaviour makes me feel like shit - I don't want it anymore.

I so agree cut off, it is death to the sex life. He is immature but he can change. What works for me with adolescent DCs is to mirror back their behaviour so they can see what they're doing and where they're heading with it. I'm still talking about picking up after themselves and putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket and respecting housework. Hopefully, she's otherwise happy with his contributions

Thanks everyone! Lots of fantastic advice there, and I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one with an incredibly messy husband.

Lots of you have hit the nail on the head for me, in that it's the lack of respect for me, and the home, that gets to me, rather than him being a bit messy. If he admitted he was messy but did his best then I could put up with that but it's just the blatent "Oh she will put that away" attitude that I hate.

Delights that awaited me this morning: sports bag still in the middle of the floor, a tracksuit top over the back of a chair, breakfast stuff everywhere and not loaded into the dishwasher, even more glasses by the side of the bed, glasses in the living room, a dog lead and dog biscuits just dumped on the worktop, shoes randomly left in the kitchen, a bottle of deodorant on the worktop, and an empty loo roll where he hadn't put another on.

So frustrating.....

Bumblequeen Are you earning? This is another factor with SAHM and small children and skews the housework expectations.

This isn't about being messy, this is about an abusive man demonstrating to the OP that she is his servant and his property and had better learn to obey him.
ShoutyHamster's right, give him one last warning, tell him clearly that you will not live with being treated like a slave, and if he laughs, or gets aggressive, or makes vague promises to improve but no effort to do so then start making plans to leave, because a man who holds you in such fundamental contempt ('woman', not human being, something that exists to serve me) will get worse, graduating steadily to name calling and probably, in the end, to physical violence.

Although my DH isn't as bad as some on here, he does like to leave stuff lying around.
We've come to an agreement on most things for exmaple; it's ok if socks are left next to the kitchen door (not next the the toilet/bed/hallway/sideboard), shoes must be left in the hallway, stuff you read in bed must be put onto bedside table & not thrown onto floor. If either of us break any of these rules, I throw out whatever the offending item is (so far he's only lost one magazine).

OP, if that little lot 'awaited me' (implication: my little woman job to do for the big important manpig), I'd be packing a bag, and leaving with the dc for either a friend, family, or even a B&B for the night. Or two or eight nights.

Text to the manpig: 'I've left - there was barely room to move in the house for the piles of sheer disrespect you'd left me to clear up. Me and the kids are at xx, I'll call you tomorrow but will be busy between 2 and 3: I've got a solicitor's appointment and relate to sort out. Let me know if you want to start pulling your weight or whether you're just going to be busy once more pulling my neat, taken-care-of, tidy stuff out of the cupboards just to make the abusive point that you think I'm your slave and should just suck up your appalling treatment of me. Take care darling, bye x'

Oh and by the way OP, I'm a messy piggy too as is my DH... but neither of us expect the other to exist to clear up, wash up, put away and generally do the miserable stuff while the other one sits pretty. Not Fair.

feel your pain totally. am almost at binliner point myself.

Is this a dumpable offence then?

This sounds like my Ex-DH. His mother waited on him hand and foot and I was meant to pick up her mantle.

I did this;

Dirty clothes left on floor, bed, chairs were folded and put back in the drawers/wardrobes. It took him a suprisingly long period of time to realise that he was wearing skanky pants, some of them had been put away dirty half a dozen times or more.

I cleared out the kitchen cupboards of all excess 'stuff'. There were two of us so we had two cups, two plates, two bowls, two knives, two forks, two spoons. If he wanted to eat or drink he had to retrieve the item and wash it.

I cannot believe I actually had to resort to such drastic measures with a grown man and I agree it is a total lack of respect.

One of the reasons he is now my ex and someone else's problem.

Of course treating your partner with utter disrespect is a dumpable offence.

Without respect you've got nothing.

I agree with the posters who say that what he did with your stuff OP was abusive and alarming. This is not just about someone who is untidy/messy but about something else. Also agree that it's you who is being trained here, not him.

If you don't do something DRASTIC to address this I also believe that his behaviour is a slippery slope - which rings alarm bells with me. Please don't think 'aw love him he doesn't mean it'. He does OP.

Also OP - lose his computer game 'somewhere' in the mess. He is an adult.

What's sad is that he made more of an effort when he retrieved stuff from the bin to 'prove a point' to his wife than he ever has helping round the house.