Hook-gate - is this downright odd behaviour from DH?

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DH is a rigid black and whitetype of guy.

Apologies - I know the following is trivial but it really pissed me off.

Yesterday he brushed passed some coats that were on the vertical bannister pole thingy at the bottom of the stairs (I think it's called a newel post) and knocked off my coat accidently onto the floor. He carried on walking past and didn't pick it up. When I asked him to pick it up he said no, that he had provided more hooks in the porch 2 years ago for coats so if I choose to put it on the newel post and it got accidentally knocked off (by him) then no he wasn't going to pick it up.

He said he saw it as a contract - he'd provided more hooks 2 years ago, and if I chose not to put the coat in the correct place then if it got knocked off then it was tough. He then admitted that he'd been taking this type of approach for years about all sorts of things. I never knew and have been wondering why I often end up picking up things unexpectedly off the floor (I assumed kids had knocked them off and then lied that it wasn't them!!).

He also said that he adopted this approach out of respect for me (!?!!). Because if he was to pick the coat up then he would feel that he was treating me like a kid, and so our relationship would be unequal.

Everything he does is linked to an underlying principle, so this behaviour is not borne out of laziness (he is not at all lazy - the opposite) - he will have thought it through!

I can not for the life of me understand this odd approach. It seems a bit passive aggressive / aspergery to me. I guess it does have some strange logic to it, but it's not really in the spirit of marital team work!

AIBU?

My husband also refuses to use the perfectly good hooks we have in the hall. It also really irritates me. I also have been known to knock down his coat and not pick it up

To be fair, if this was my DP and I, I would probably do the same to him.

It really gets on my nerves when he leaves clothes lying around, or not in the correct place after I have tidied up and/or made places to put things. Shoes for example, should be put in a specific place, so when he leaves them lying just a few feet from there, I go a bit mad...

Yes he's the nagger and I'm the more relaxed one - role reversal of "traditional" norms.

He's not "picking up" after me - he's the one knocking it off by accident and then choosing to leave it!!

It's definitely ringing Asperger's alarm bells with me, rather than twat alarm bells. OP does he display Asperger's traits in other ways? Have you ever suggested getting assessed?

If there is another side to this story, it is obvious what it is likely to be: the OP doesn't pick up after herself, and she leaves things in the way. Her DH asked her ever so nicely, but the OP didn't take the hint. The DH then asked directly - probably about some other item - and got told no. So he has done two things. First, he has stopped enabling DW's messyness, and secondly, he's tried to make it easier for his DW to keep things tidy herself by, amongst other things, putting up hooks (perhaps he mentioned this to DW, but DW didn't really care what he was up to). However, nothing has changed. The coat is only one of a lot of examples, and it's just too exhausting to mention them all. The hallway is really too small to leave coats on the newel post, but DW insists on leaving it there; he's knocked it down x number of times and after a while he'd had enough and, as is generally the case in these situations, the situation only gets aired in the course of a row.

Yes, the OP's DH may just be an arse, but I'm not convinced beyond reasonable doubt. Comments, OP?

OP, look up OCPD. Read some of the things people with OCPD say. Does it sound like your DH?

Lord, am I perversely happy to see that I'm not the only one married to such a nutcase. That's exactly the sort of thing my DH does.
Sometimes I tolerate, sometimes I laugh and other times I feel like crying.
He really can't see anything strange in his attitude though.

He is actually just allowing the OP to face the consequences of her actions - if you put your coat somewhere where itislikely to fall off, it will! He has decided not to encourage this - which he obviously sees as a bad habit - by picking it up and replacing it on the offending newel post. The way he phrased his explanation, quoting a "contract" was obviously over-formal and pedantic, but in principle, he's absolutely right! The only reason it seems to be treating the OP as a child is that the "consequences" method is often used for youngsters to train them in good habits!

LOL! A contract? Did you manage to keep a straight face? I wouldn't have.

Really hard to say unless you can confirm whether or not this has been discussed before.

I get sick of my husband leaving stuff in the sink instead of putting it in the dishwasher, which is right next to the sink. I've asked him several hundred times over the years not to do it and he still does it. So now I leave the things in there to get covered with grease and other crap and he has to fish them out and put them in the dishwasher. I have been known, when I want to use something, to ask him to get it out of the sink and wash it up because I don't see why the burden of extra work should fall on me when we are both just as capable of tidying up after ourselves.

If this is the kind of situation that has arisen through your refusal to use the hooks in the porch, then I agree with your husband. Continually leaving your stuff somewhere where others have to pick it up is annoying. I'm no neat freak, but if something annoys my husband enough for him to ask me not to do it, unless I have a bloody good reason to continue, I just make the effort to stop.

I can't really believe that this is the first time the issue of the newel post vs coat hooks has come up.

Which would make sense if a coat were "likely to fall off" a newel post. But it isn't. He walks into it and knocks it off. Things never fall off my newel post

Every newel post is different...

Jeez, sounds like hard work!

In this house, if you drop it/knock it over, you pick it up. Doesn't matter who it belongs to or where it is - you put it back where you knocked it over from.

FWIW my coat hooks are just as you come in the door - becomes a habit to take them off and hang them up. Even the kids manage it now (probably sick of me saying 'mind and hang up your coat/bag' as we get in the door).

But is much more likely to slip off a newel post! A newel post is not designed to hold a coat the way a peg does. The post is presumably wooden and therefore quite slippery when in contact with the lining of a coat - we had one for years and things certainly fell off very easily with the slightest contact in passing. Why should people have to be careful every time they go down the stairs because someone has hung their coat in the wrong place? It is fairer to expect the coat-owner to hang her coat up on the peg provided.

I think, if the OP has a problem here, it is with the way her husband expresses himself, and surely this will have come up before. It may be a separate issue that she has to deal with. But, in the situation just quoted, it was the medium that was wrong, not the message!

I have OCD. If my DH tried to bring that in to a discussion of where he can or can't be bothered to hang his coats I'd tell him where to stick it. I imagine people with Aspergers would feel similar.

So, OP, he's the one who does the nagging, but he's never nagged you about your coat before? Really? You sure he's not just got fed up enabling your laziness? You seem happy enough that him knocking your coat is an accident not on purpose, so you acknowledge that if your coat is there it may well accidentally get knocked over - why does he have to go out of his way to solve this (pick the coat up) when you refuse to pre-emptively solve it (hang your coat on the hooks).

What are the other things?

But he doesn't deliberately knock the coat off! That would be a totally different situation. He is accidentally knocking it off and refusing to pick it up.

Other things? I would imagine now you start thinking there will be lots

CorusKate - things fall off my newel post all the time. They're not really designed with coat storage in mind and not all are created equal That's why in my house it's not used for storing things beyond a 'need to grab this and take it upstairs next time I'm going up' very temporary solution. OP's DH shouldn't have to pick up stuff that has fallen because it's been left in a stupid place yet again, even if he did knock it, particularly when it's not his fault it was put there and even more particularly when he has actually provided a sensible place for said item.

Out of interest, has anyone ever seen OCPD or Aspergers suggested when a woman gets stroppy with her DH over a matter of household tidiness?

I'm with everton and letter

I understand what your DH means when he says Because if he was to pick the coat up then he would feel that he was treating me like a kid, and so our relationship would be unequal.

He is disengaging, the way that posters on here all pile in to say you should, when (mostly) women complain about their partners not doing things properly. My DH is useless in lots of small and big ways that drive me mad and as a result I don't see him as equal at all, it is like having an overgrown child. So be grateful it's not the alternative and hang your bloody coat up in the porch

But, but, surely -if you accidentally knock something over or off wherever it is then you pick it up. Even if the thing isn't where it should have been then you don't just leave it where it lies. I thought that was normal, sane, considerate behaviour.

Your DH, frankly, sounds a bit weird.

I think we need to see video footage of the OP's coat hanging on the newel post and people going up and down the stairs! OP?

The question is whether you agreed on putting up more hooks and not leaving things on the banniester. If so, he's being annoying, abut also annoyingly right. No need to be so patronising about it, trying to "teach" you, but fundamentally he'd be right.

If he unilaterally decided to put the hooks up and tell you not to hang your coat on thebannister, you could quite rightly tell him to fuck off with his hooks cos you prefer your coat on the bannister. Even if you don't.

Living with other human being is just so bloody draining sometimes. The most mundane things take up so much energy. I must think of Helena Bonham-Carter and Tim Burton's living arrangements at least 20 times a day. Which roughly equates to the number of times a day I pick up DH's frigging belongings and put them where they frigging belong.