to be v annoyed with DH for not cleaning up after himself?

[glossyflower]

I have resigned myself to not relying on him to do any meaningful housework. So I just get on with it myself, and occasionally ask him to do a small task (fill dishwasher) or something I can't manage since I'm 7 months pg, huge and been ill most of my pregnancy.

All I ask him, and expect him to do is tidy up AFTER himself, and one of my bugbears, is that when he makes his sandwiches in the morning, he chops up tomato and doesn't wipe down the chopping board afterwards.
The tomato seeds and juice then dries, by the time I get up I'm cleaning up after him. I've told him a million times before, and he'll do it once or twice then after that forgets.

Another major bugbear is he'll take his socks off in the living room after work, and leave them on the floor.

This morning was the last straw! I am totally pissed off. I sent him a picture of the tomato mess and told him the chopping board is going in the bin.

His socks, I'm pushing underneath the sofa from now on until he runs out of socks and finds them gathering dust under there.

He had a day off yesterday, and I started the housework but couldn't finish as I was going to work. I asked him to hoover and wipe the kitchen tops down. He did the kitchen but not the hoovering. This morning, as he's been in the kitchen, you would never think it was even cleaned. He just leaves a trail of destruction wherever he goes.

He did in his defence, tidy up his soldering equipment into a box in the living room (still bits of metal and wire on the floor), after he spent yesterday evening making electrical components on the sofa. I told him before work today, make sure his stuff is tidied away before he goes. So he did do that.
I don't even like him doing that kind of stuff in the living room, he has his own studio he can go to that's much more suitable.

Oh yes, and while I'm on the subject of being pissed off with my dh; we have two bathrooms, one up and one down. We ran out of toilet roll, so he buys a big multipack yesterday, and puts it (still in sainsbury's carrier bag) in the downstairs toilet on the floor. Not even in the cupboard away where it is usually kept that is right next to where he placed it, and didn't replace the toilet roll upstairs either. He opened it to use a roll, and left the rest in the bag on the floor.
I didn't even bother saying anything, just put it away myself.

...

Feel a bit better for getting all that off my chest now! xxx

[ratbagcatbag]

I agree that people have different levels of messy, me and DH are equally bad, but at different things, so I will make a sandwich and leave stuff lying around, so DH reminds me put it away, I see muck on the carpets which he doesn't, however if I ask him to Hoover he will. We just let different stuff bother us, I do try now and tidy up and just ask DH to do something as he happily does it.

I'm 34 weeks pregnant and have now decided I don't like cleaning at all and DH isn't great at it. We're now getting a cleaner in once a week when I go back to work full time to solve the bigger stuff.

[feralgirl]

I read a similar rant on MN a while ago where a woman had just started putting all her DH's dirty laundry and dishes into his car

For my own part, my major bugbear is that DH never puts away his clean laundry. It builds up into a massive pile until his drawers are empty and everything he owns is on our bedroom floor with me nagging daily. What I have taken to doing is just jamming it as hard as I can into his drawers, all unfolded and messed up. Then he can't get it out or find anything that he wants. My response to this is invariably "if you don't like how I put your clothes away then do it yourself."

DH was an atrocious manchild and my MiL did everything for him (he'd never used a washing machine until we moved away from our home town. For the first year of us living together but in the same town as MiL, she used to come and collect his dirty laundry every Friday and then bring it back clean and ironed on Sunday ).

He has got better very very slowly and now works PT and stays at home with the DCs while I work FT so he has to be in charge of cleaning and cooking. Still, I give the house a proper clean every six weeks when I'm off school though as we have very different ideas of what constitutes "clean".

[twofaceshenanigans]

My DH was like this when we first met, I stopped doing everything that was his mess, if clothes were not put in the basket they didn't get washed, I only cleaned up my mess and washed up my plates and cups, petty? Yes but it worked, he's not perfect at all but he does clean up after he's made a sandwich, puts all his dirty clothes in he basket and he does all the cooking (he finishes work before me)and clears up after himself, he does the food shopping and on Sundays we spend a few hours deep cleaning. I'm his wife not his mum or his skivvy.

[glossyflower]

Ok, here's what happened.

After he got home from work, I never mentioned anything until later on in the evening.
I said we need to talk about household chores etc. He looked at me quite blankly.

I went on to say, that I expect him to clean up after himself and when we do the housework we share responsibility.
He went on to point out that I myself had just made myself some pudding, and left the container on the side and the ice cream out of the freezer - why did I not tidy it away after serving myself food?
Well as I explained to him that was an occasion that I did leave my mess out, but only because a) I realised I had just put my pudding in the microwave in a foil container - I felt very lucky that it didn't explode! And b) I had got the ice cream out but realised that the freezer door hadn't been shut properly and everything including my ice cream was defrosted! So I was a bit preoccupied with thinking, "all I want to do is sit down and eat my pudding!" lol.

He didn't apologise for not trying harder or promise he will try harder so I am going to do what someone else suggested:- with no strops, no emotion, no huffing and puffing doing things myself, when I want him to do something, I will TELL him not ASK to do something with a please. I will be relentless until hopefully he'll get into a routine and eventually do it without asking.
I think that's my best chance.

In the mean time, socks are still being hidden under the sofa when they are left out, dirty clothes folded and put away if they are not in the basket, and things will be thrown in the bin if he doesn't keep it tidy.

[glossyflower]

MyHeadWasInTheSandNowNot

Is your name Gemma, you sound just like her lol.

[BookWormery]

Keep it up OP!! Do FUCK ALL for him from now on, scrote that he is.

I'm he didn't apologise or promise to do better!

[BookWormery]

Here's an idea - every time you see a piece of clothing on the floor, cut some of it off. So a leg off a trouser, an arm off a top... Maybe save that for phase two

[FlouncingMintyy]

To be fair, if he does all the cooking and food shopping then that is quite a large contribution to household tasks.

If someone has cooked for me, I tend to assume it is my job to tidy up and do dishwasher.

Re. rest of housework - it should only take say 4 hours per week. Tell him you will both do 1 hour on a Saturday morning and 1 hour on a Sunday morning and stick to it.

If you don't mind doing the laundry then only do that which is put in the laundry basket, get him a separate basket for his clean washing and put it all in there, unfolded, unironed etc.

[diddl]

But it seems to me that OP is only asking him to clean/tidy up after himself.

It should go without saying tbh!

I don´t go out to work & have two teens.

My husband does the weekly shop & always cooks once, if not twice at the weekend.

I don´t think that absolves him of needing to put dirty clothes in the washbox, dirty pots in the kitchen, any rubbish of his in the bin, clean sink/bath/toilet if necessary after use!

[choccyp1g]

He completely missed the point about the ice-cream. The thing is, you weren't expecting him to clean it up, you knew full well that yyou would sort it later.
As for doing it all on Saturday and Sunday, that's fine for the actual cleaning, but why should OP have to live with 4 pairs of dirty socks on the floor by Friday morning? And a chopping board covered with 5 morning's worth of tomatoes and crumbs?

[diddl]

Oh, & I don´t mind washing up after my husband has cooked-but I don´t expect to have to scrape stuff off a chopping board or throw peelings away that have been left on the surface!

[wineandroses]

Op, I don't really get the socks under the sofa, and the unwashed clothes back into the wardrobe. You might be deriving some sort of silent enjoyment from this - but he doesn't even know about it, so what's the point?

Sorry, but the fact that he immediately turned the conversation around to your shortcomings is a big red flag - he knows he isn't pulling his weight but has no intention of changing. What a twat. And I don't think I could cope with the stuck record approach, it would seriously depress me and badly affect our relationship. Though his willingness to see you as his skivvy must be pretty depressing already. Wonder if he realises how this will ultimately wear away at your feelings for him?

[chroniclackofimagination]

We were like this in reverse, when we began living together I was 23 and really untidy, seven years on I'm tidier than him so people do change habits. I was just a bit immature and lazy and didn't really think about the impact that might have on him. I grew into caring about my home and our living space.

That aside, one short term solution is to get a cleaner and have him pay for it out of his personal spending rather than treating it as a joint bill. This saved us several thousand arguments and it was worth it to me.

[WhereYouLeftIt]

Interesting (and depressing) that his response to your conversation was to turn it around to you. A clear example of 'the best form of defence is attack'. He knows he's in the wrong, but he has no intention of pulling his weight. Totally disrespectful of you, he really is treating you like a skivvy, not an equal. I's so glad you are finacially independent, be sure to keep it this way.

[Tenacity]

His reaction is unbelievable.
You got problems on your hands...
Time for a serious talk. You have to nip it in bud.

[MidnightMasquerader]

Gosh, good luck. You're going to need it.

This is all going to get so much worse when the baby comes.

Oh, and the kicker? Your libido is going to nose-dive into freefall before too long. With a baby to look after, and man-child to skivvy to, forget about sex.

You do realise it's virtually impossible to fancy and, you know, actually like someone who treats you like a maid, right?

[fedupwithdeployment]

Socks under sofa I get.

As for folding up the dirty clothes and putting them back into the cupboard...I think that is a bit passive aggressive. I would leave them / put them in a back bin liner. He will run out eventually....whereas he probably won't notice that the folded clothes are dirty.

[seeker]

"In the mean time, socks are still being hidden under the sofa when they are left out, dirty clothes folded and put away if they are not in the basket, and things will be thrown in the bin if he doesn't keep it tidy."

Frankly, I think this is ridiculous, and juvenile. And will get you nowhere. Decide, between you if possible, unilaterally if not, what you are prepared to do, and do it. Having first told him that's what's happening. And stick to it.