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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

The toiletries bag (light hearted)

157 replies

ollieplimsoles · 06/06/2015 18:23

A stand- off is happening in my house.

I was unpacking the shopping in the kitchen when we came home and all the bath/ shower things were in the one Morrisons bag. I asked him to 'take this bag of toiletries to the bathroom'. He did, when I went upstairs however I chuckled to myself to see that he had simply put the large bag down on the floor of the bathroom and not actually unpacked it (classic DH). I told him I thought it was funny and that he should have unpacked it. He replied with 'you never asked me to unpack it.

Over the following days the bag has remained on the floor, only DH has taken what he needs out of it as he needed it! So I started doing the same! Now only a few items remain in the carrier bag that has been on the floor for almost two weeks.

Dh won't move it because...he doesn't want to. and I won't because I unpacked all he other bits of shopping!

We are both well aware of the bag and tension around it is building, who will crack first? I know I didn't tell him to unpack it, but who leaves a shopping bag unpacked on the floor!

AIBU to ask for your similar stand- off stories?

OP posts:

Pipbin · 07/06/2015 23:06

In our last house DH had his own study. Once every few weeks I would gather up all his abandoned shite and drop it on his desk. He then complained that his room was becoming a dumping ground!

laineylou · 07/06/2015 23:13

I am obviously a man and married to most of you. Sorry.

ThatWasMyFavouriteDressNow · 07/06/2015 23:23

Some many mentioning lofts. Why is it the mans job to go up to the loft?

Drivingforpeace · 07/06/2015 23:23

When DH opens his post, rather than throw the envelopes away, he puts each letter back in its ripped envelope (sticking out at a right angle) and leaves it all on the table. A daily stand off, although I'm pretty sure I'm the one having the stand off, he's oblivious!

Fatmomma99 · 07/06/2015 23:24

This is a funny thread, but it's also interesting.

We had a situation... our front lawn is open-plan with our neighbours, so when we mow, we mow ours and theirs. I'm VERY aware of dong my fair share and not taking the piss.
For 4 years I worked from home (before that we both worked long hours and were equally as rubbish). When I worked from home, I did ALL the domestic stuff, apart from a couple of things that were #his# jobs.
Now I work longer hours than him.
Guess how equally things are done now? He 'does' all the house cleaning, but I do all the bits he 'doesn't see'. I still mow the lawn "oh, I never notice the lawn"

I think what is fascinating is what they do and don't see, and what they do and don't think is anything to do with them.

They're basically rubbish. But I think we're a bit rubbish for just picking things up (after a stand off or not). But, I've never wanted to be described as a 'nag'. And MN will FLAME you if you're PA.
So, something needs to be done.... You think it's your DP/DH's role to do, they don't do it. You ask them, they don't do it. so, do you nag? Do you hint? Do you do some PA thing to make life difficult for them? I'm not sure what the assertive answer IS in that situation.

ConnortheMonkey · 07/06/2015 23:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Eminado · 07/06/2015 23:54

"
When DH opens his post, rather than throw the envelopes away, he puts each letter back in its ripped envelope (sticking out at a right angle) and leaves it all on the table. A daily stand off, although I'm pretty sure I'm the one having the stand off, he's oblivious!"

I think we might be married to the same man.

SilverBirch2015 · 07/06/2015 23:55

I suspect we actually have quite a few annoying habits ourselves FatMomma. DH finds my things left to go upstairs on the bottom of stairs annoying too. As I get older, I've become more tolerant and pragmatic, that's why I created the myriad of "man" drawers. He is who he is, I don't tidy up after him and have learned to just smile benevolently, it is his home too, if he wants to leave stuff that that really is up to him. As long as there is a fair share of domestic labour not a problem really.

However it doesn't stop me sounding off about him to others!

SilverBirch2015 · 07/06/2015 23:59

Yes he does that putting things back in envelopes too. As does my MIL, SIL, DS - I'm actually the only person I know who doesn't, and why don't they just throw the envelope away?

Postchildrenpregranny · 08/06/2015 00:12

Every morning my DH of 33 years places his discarded Pjs on top of his pillow . Every morning I then fold them properly and put them under his pillow . I've never asked him if he's noticed . Perhaps he thinks there is a Pyjama Fairy ?

Ain626 · 08/06/2015 00:16

I actually quite often put letters back in envelopes...

To be fair to DH he does clean.. but only if there's a reason to like someone is coming over or whatever. He does also do his own laundry.

Day to day tasks though he's not so hot. Most annoying ones are leaving bowls, plates, whatever, on the side above the dishwasher. Why can't he open the door and put them in? I don't think he knows how to clean a bathroom, and on the odd occasion he has a bath rather than a shower he doesn't give it a rinse when he's finished.. (As opposed to me who showers and gives it all a quick rinse after a bath because I figure you end up sitting in dirty water when you have a bath...). Empty packets sometimes have trouble finding the bin...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not the tidiest of people. For one I'm pretty good at leaving things mmon the kitchen table. But at least what I leave isn't dirty or literally rubbish...

Ihatecobwebs · 08/06/2015 00:35

Christmas once stayed in the living room for 18 months (is now stored at my mother's as I can access her loft myself.)

taxi4ballet · 08/06/2015 01:03

As I speak, I'm looking at a remote control, a beer bottle top and bottle opener, a black ballpoint and a piece of paper with someone's phone number written on it. Oh yes, and the mouse for his laptop. All on the coffee table in the lounge, which, earlier this evening, had nothing on it at all.

I plan to keep watch, and see how things develop over the next few days...

LucyBabs · 08/06/2015 01:18

I know a lovely woman who lived with her 3 sons and husband. They had a sock stand off (well she did) a random sock had been dropped in their hallway. It stayed there for 3 weeks. Apparently only the woman of the house noticed and the men walked by it each day for 3 weeks! Woman gave up and picked up the sock after 3 weeks

Tinklewinkle · 08/06/2015 01:23

We're in the middle of a sock stand off too.

Every night he abandons his shoes in the hall, sits on the couch and removes his socks and chucks them in the corner of the living room.

I'm ignoring them to see how long it takes before he cracks and puts them in the wash. We have quite a pile now

I actually caught him fishing through the pile and sniffing them this morning, I assume, in a bid to find the least offensive pair. Dirty minger

MadAngryGnome · 08/06/2015 02:19

We had a toilet roll stand off. Our toilet bin is too small to fit more than about one of the cardboard rolls, so they started appearing standing upright on the bin lid. (Highly inconvenient, as then the bin itself is rendered useless for fear of having to move the dead rolls.)

Over about a week, a toilet roll pyramid started taking shape as both of us added to it instead of taking them out to a bigger bin. Neither of us mentioned the toilet pyramid.

One day the whole pyramid disappeared. I assume DH cracked and chucked the whole lot out but it was never talked of

Ashbeeee · 08/06/2015 06:22

When young used to live with boyfriend. He refused to wash up, so I joined him. Sink piled up, me thinking 'at some point he's going to break'. He bought paper plates.
We split. (Not just over the plates).

merrymouse · 08/06/2015 07:23

I have to admit, I can see justification for the DH's actions, depending on the rest of the scenario.

I'm imagining that I'm trying to train the dog, supervise homework, cook food, clean that nasty stain off the cooker and sort out a pile of washing. Another member of the household walks in carrying some shopping. As I am going upstairs with a pile of sheets they ask me to take a bag of toiletries up to the bathroom. I hook the bag over my arm, dump it in the bathroom, take the sheets to the bedroom and go back downstairs to continue cooking and sort out some argument involving a ruler.

An hour later, this other member of the household mentions the stand-off we are having about the bag of toiletries. I'm and say "you only asked me to take it upstairs!"

LetThereBeCupcakes · 08/06/2015 07:57

Sgtmajormummy if you're still on the thread I NEED to know what "wardrobe changeover time" is. Do you and your DH swap wardrobes or something? Why?

I'm feeling quite grateful for my DH right now. OK we have the occasional sock-stand off. And he has been known to wear the same pair of pants for 3 days because he's not got any clean ones. But on the whole he's not too bad.

I think we've been together long enough now that I've figured out ways of getting him to realise things need doing. For example, if I leave the basket of clean laundry sitting on the bedroom floor, he'll just walk around it for ever. But if I tip the clean laundry onto the bed, he'll sort it out.

Dead toilet rolls are the favourite play thing of DDog 2, so they're easily sorted.

Bin overloading was sorted the day DH tried to push it all down and he split the bag.

I'm not sure what DH would do with in the toiletries bag situation though. Might have to give that a go...

Sunbeam18 · 08/06/2015 08:26

Wardrobe changeover time is seasonal, surely? Summer to winter?

justbatteringon · 08/06/2015 08:29

Dp used to put our post into 2 kitchen drawers every piece that came through the door including the empty envelopes. I usually gave in twice a year and emptied it while shouting at him why the hell did you keep this pile of bloody rubbish.
There's currently a toddler fork and sock on our kitchen table been there 2 weeks now.

Sunbeam18 · 08/06/2015 08:35

His post of the past two weeks is lying unopened on our kitchen table. When it gets to three weeks I gather it all up and stuff it into a cabinet with a lid. It's almost full. A month or so ago he opened it and sounded off about it as 'there could be something important in there that I haven't opened'

BitOutOfPractice · 08/06/2015 09:01

lumpy the conclusion I am drawing from this thread is: never live with a man again!

LetThereBeCupcakes · 08/06/2015 09:06

Oh sunbeam of course! I had visions of the poster and her DH emptying out their entire wardrobes and swapping over every 6 months

Notso · 08/06/2015 09:42

If DH had done that dressing gown thing to me I think I'd have ended it there and then.

The stand off here was toilet roll inners.
I was sick of being the only one who threw them out so I stopped. Just over two months it lasted, in that time DD then 5 told her friends Mum that I collected toilet rolls, DH built them into a tower and asked me if I was saving them for craft.
In the end we went on holiday and returned to find my Mum had disposed of them

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