to think he should do the fucking washing up

[wherethefuckisthefuckingtuna]

Deal is, I cook dinner, he does the washing up.

But he never does it that night he says "I'll do it in the morning".

I can't fucking stand knowing its sat there all night. But if I start doing it in the evening he gets all pissy and says he'll do it later.

FFS!! DO IT NOW YOU LAZY BASTARD!!!

I'm with you in that I like the kitchen to be sorted before going up to bed. Can't stand coming down to dirty plates etc.

Best piece of advice I can share is what a lovely pest controller man told me many moons ago. He said that one of the biggest ways of attracting mice into your home is to leave dirty plates out overnight. Especially if there are bits of food on them. The local rodent population will thank you for laying on a party for them.

I dislike the word nagging. Like bossy or bitchy, it's usually always directed only at women.

I also dislike the use of "usually always"

I am with you OP. We come down in the morning when we're ready for breakfast, if the washing up is left till the morning then I have no space to get breakfast ready, the kitchen smells of old food, the dishwasher won't have been run so we'd be short of something or other. It's a massive pain.

Katherina - thanks for the article - an interesting read!

Are you married to my ex wherethefuck? Oh, no, wait a minute, you can't be because your OH actually does eventually do the dishes. Mine used to say he'd wash up (oh, so magnanimous of him since I'd spent all day looking after five kids under eight), and then just not do it. At all. Eventually, when I was forced to wash up so we actually had some bloody dishes to eat off, since there were seven of us in the house and we got through crockery like stink - he'd wander in and say 'oh, I was just about to do that'. Every. Bloody. Time.

I feel your pain. I am the world's biggest slob and even so I hate coming down in the morning to dirty dishes all over the side. I can only wash up once a day now (no hot water, and boiling a kettle takes ages), so I make sure I do it right before bed.

To all those saying "I couldn't sleep knowing the dishes were still dirty":

Wow..You really need to get a grip and find a hobby. How sad and one dimensional must life be to let shite like that rule your life.

My DH and I are your DP. We don't always get the washing up done the same night but it's done before the next meal. I tend to like a larger pile to get through in one go, rather than doing dishes after every meal. We have doors to close on our kitchen though and don't go in after dinner, so it doesn't really bother us. There's also enough counter space to pile the plates for the three of us and any pans used, and still have plenty of room for the next morning before the washing up is done. It's actually DD2's bottles that take up the most space.

I don't think you're necessarily BU, because you use the room afterwards. BUT it's something you need to explain to your DP to help him understand your reasoning. As long as he does it before the next meal, at least it's getting done. It might be something you both have to compromise around, like one night it's done right away so you can use the area and the next night you take time off to relax so it doesn't need doing right away.

I'm a woman in a relationship with a man. He's capable of nagging and that's the context I used it in.

YABU, what difference does it make? So long as they're done before dinner the next night, does it really matter whether it's done at 8pm or 8am?

The difference it makes is that each of the 20 times a day one goes into the kitchen, one will gag at the sight/smell of old food, or (extending it to kitchen cleaning generally) be depressed by the dirt/disorder of crumbs and water spread across all surfaces, so that they have to be wiped before I can make a cup of coffee.

If one only cleaned before making dirty again, that would mean always being dirty, the state of clean would never exist. The state of dirty makes me depressed and angry every single time I encounter it. So leaving to next day means I hate my spouse twenty times a day.

Washing dishes just before dinner makes as much sense as only showering immediately before shitting/exercising/whatever gets you dirty. If you're going to be dirty 99.9% of the time, why bother cleaning at all?

On a related note, DW often says she will clean/tidy some mess of hers "later." And she does. I can't seem to make her understand that a state of tidiness existing for half a day once or twice a year is not even 0.1% of a solution to the problem she is causing me. (I would like to divorce/evict her over this, but fear it would cost me hundreds of thousands of pounds.)

I'm with you OP. Why leave it? What's he doing that's so much more important than keeping the house in a reasonable state? Especially if you have a baby.

I find it annoying if we've used the dishwasher and I need to empty it in the morning. That's yesterday's work impinging on the small amount of time I have to do today's work.

He's being lazy. It's simply that he can't be bothered to do it when he doesn't have a need for it to be done. I'd do as a PP suggested and feed yourself. You've no need to feed him just as he has no need to do the washing up in the evening.

YANBU! I would not put up with that. I hate looking at dirty dishes hanging around.

Wow..You really need to get a grip and find a hobby. How sad and one dimensional must life be to let shite like that rule your life.

Or, I don't know, some of us just prefer to live in a reasonably clean and tidy environment?

No problems of course if other people couldn't care less - the problem is if one partner does not want to make breakfast amongs sink full of greasy water and no clean surfaces; and the other one thinks she should just get a life.

I hate leaving the kitchen in a mess before bed, so we always tidy up after cooking dinner.

I'm totally slovenly around the rest of the house though which drives DH insane - he's generally much tidier than me. That means we each take on different tasks, I do all the cooking, gardening, food shops and majority of child admin stuff while he tidies and cleans to his hearts content.

That would really piss me off too.

During the week, I like the dishes done straight after dinner so that the kitchen is clean, we can relax in the evening & we're ready for the next day. I could put up with them being done a bit later on in the evening I guess, but there is no way I want to get up in the morning to get myself & the kids ready for work/school/nursery and be surrounded by last night's dinner dishes!

I do relax a bit more at the weekends when we have a bit more time in the mornings though.

I think perhaps as well, it is dependent on my attitude towards it.

I have multiple sclerosis and by the end of the day, I have very little energy left. I use what energy I do have, to cook dinner. So I guess I kind of think to myself "if I can find the energy to do dinner, you can find the energy to get up and do the dishes!" Rightly or wrongly.

He's a wonderful husband though and I don't discount all the great things he does. This really is just a niggle. But it proper boils my piss when I come down in the morning to dirty dishes. Can you tell I'm not a morning person??

I used to live with someone who would wash all the dishes before he sat down to eat. Drove me mad that he would leave his food on the table to go cold while he cleaned up Weird.

As long as he is cleaning up in the morning then I'd probably let it go. If you can't then it's time to find him a different household chore to do.

YABU. As long as it's being done the fact that you can't stand it being there is your problem. Not his.

I had some friends who lived in a shared house as students. Their approach to dishes and cleaning was similar than some people have expressed on this thread - why clear the table before eating, when you can still squeeze your plate in between the dirty dishes and general garbage. It's done eventually when someone's mum visits

Sorry to hear you have MS, OP.

Have you explained that to him? That your illness makes you really tired but that you still manage to cook because it's necessary to feed your family, so you feel the least he could do is get up and wash the dishes?

He might not see it that way.

My partner is terrible for leaving the dishes unwashed (amongst other things), but when I suggested we get a dishwasher he said we shouldn't because he doesn't think they clean "properly"... I pointed out neither does he, but at least the dishwasher tries