Sharing towels

[sleeplessinderbyshire]

Lighthearted one here and suspect may be told this is very much a first world problem....

Towels.

When I was growing up we always had our own towels. Not just "own" in terms of not sharing a wet/used towel but I had pink towels, dsis had yellow, mum had green and dad blue. You NEVER used someone else's - helped yourself to a clean one from airing cupboard but always your own colour.

Fast forward to now. My kids have their "own" (distinctive striped/coloured/embroidered but not with a colony rule). DH thinks it's reasonable for him/me just to take any clean towel from the place we store clean towels and use it. This means he's currently got my lovely yellow white company super duper bath sheet. He says that as I've got another towel he can't see the issue. Apparent when he was growing up they just took any clean towel from the airing cupboard.

He thinks I'm weird for wanting "my" towels to be mine. I think he's weird for not wanting his own (we have loads of nice towels - don't get me into him using parts of the matching sets of guest towels.....)

So AIBU or is he?

Actually, think about it, Mum, my exh would also reuse anyone's towel left to himself. Tbh he was pretty revolting generally.

Thinking about it, not think about it.

using an unwashed towel that someone else has already dried themselves on is just revolting.

How is it dirtier than sharing a bed? Sleeping in someone else's skin cells and sweat but most couples sleep together.

YABU you would have to be superhuman to get that rule inculcated thoroughly.

Ah, I see the bum-face connection, I always dry my face on my hair towel.

We have 5 towels and they are all hanging and I just grab whatever I reach first

But in your case wanting your own towel is a fairly small request so tell your dh to hand it over!

I don't wipe my face across the section where someone's naked bum might have laid in my bed either haha

I think it's just hygienic to have your own but I will use people's towels at their house if I visit or in a hotel.

Clean towels obviously. I would my want to share a dirty one

For me it came from when my kids had worms when they were little. It grossed me out and now we have different coloured towels each

I have never heard of a disease that spreads via bath towels. To think of all the bodily orifices I encountered making babies and all the bodily fluids I dealt with looking after DC. I find it hard to believe there are so many people with Mysophobia.

We all have our own different coloured towels and we wouldn't dare use anyone else's.

YANBU he is

DD has always had and wants her own different coloured towel. DH and I have the same ones but they hang in different places. I wouldn't balk if we swapped though but much rather use mine.

I have to hide them from FIL though. He uses the first towel available and that for me is very intimate. Don't share a towel with a man unless you're having sex with him .

You have never heard of impetigo? Threadworms?

Google it maybe.
I honestly don't judge anyone else but seen as they are damp and go all over your body and don't get washed each time it seems scientifically quite high chance that bacteria really loves towels.
As a mum I have spent hours de nitting, de worming, treating bloody athletes foot and verrucas that it has just worked out better if you only have to treat one person and not 3 or 4 because you all spread it to each other

Crikey. All towels have always been communal in this house. The only people who always get their own towels are guests.
I am happy to use the same towel dh has used, when he's only just had a shower, and he feels the same. If you are happy to kiss someone and sleep with them, fgs...

I dread to think of how much water and electricity are used by some of the fussier posters on here. If they are so germ-phobic do they insist on their dhs giving their privates a good going over with Dettol and a Brillo Pad before any shenanigans in bed?

I never even thought about this issue. We have towels and everyone takes the top one on the pile when they need a clean one (or more often what happens is they forget to take a towel into the bathroom and shout me to collect one for them). The kids have a towel that is their own, relating to a hobby or team they like, but only one each and so they use one of the shared pile when needed. I would never even think it was a problem using a clean towel that someone else has used before me. I use hotel towels and I hate to think how many bodies they have dried before I have touched them. They are washed, so it's fine.

Yes @dragon. My DH and DS are my people, ultimately if I wipe my DH arse on my face then so be it. I wouldn't want to rub my FILs arse or balls on my face though.

Exactly Mumi. And thanks for making me feel even more sick. I'm cracking up!! No pun intended.

When I was growing up, there was only ever one towel in use in the bathroom at a time, which we all used (family of mum, dad & 3 children). My mother used to do laundry once a week, on a Monday, so the towel was changed then.

We used to have one bath a week each and on other days we just had a wash at the sink with a flannel. We all used the same towel.

I didn't think anything of it, as it was normal for our family.

I now like DH and me to have separate towels, so we each have different colours.

we share towels. We even share towels which have already been used by someone else in the house shock horror!

Me and DP have our own towels and then there are the general towels (like for the downstairs loo etc). Mine are purple (ish), DP has blue (ish).

80's mum - ugh. I'd want to cellophane wrap mine and place it on deferently on a pedestal if I lived like that as a child. Yanbu.

We don't change towels every day so we roughly have our own just so we know whose is whose. I have no problem with using someone else's clean towel from the cupboard but don't really want to be using someone's used towel.

Do people really floss their bum cracks with a towel rather than just wrapping it round them to blot the water off? If so, bleugh.