Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

To leave his clothes on the bathroom floor...?

78 replies

Jemimapyjamas · 17/10/2016 18:21

DH is messy. I am not. DH doesn't think he is messy, and also seems to think the mess he makes is due to how busy he is (I don't buy this, it takes 5 seconds to put a cup in the dishwasher for example.) I work part time and hence to pretty much all the domestic day to day stuff, which to an extent I don't mind however I am finding myself increasingly irritated by this...
DH has a shower and leaves his clothes on the bathroom floor. Every single time. The laundry basket is next door to the bathroom, in the bedroom. We don't live in a mansion so its not far! I have asked him to put it in the laundry and I will then wash, dry and put it away. I tidy up after DS and think that DH should be a bit more considerate (tbh he doesn't have the attitude that its MY job as much as he is just oblivious as it's not something that would bother him) and putting something in the laundry isn't a big ask to help keep things tidier.
So I have been leaving it there, just where he left it. There is getting to be a reasonable pile, it has been since Friday. And I am not going to move it and hope the message will finally sink in.
AIBU?

OP posts:

Liiinoo · 17/10/2016 20:49

My DH used to do this. After nearly 30 years of marriage he has stopped and the clothes make it to the laundry basket. I have no idea why as I had given up going on at him about it. Now he takes off his white cotton work shirt and then neatly rolls his black socks and underpants up inside it making a tiny little ball of washing . So when I come to sort the washing I have to unroll the balls of clothes to make sure the black underwear doesn't go into a boil wash with his nice white shirts.

BTW, before people say I shouldn't be doing his washing I am a full time housewife and he works very long hours.

BitOutOfPractice · 17/10/2016 22:39

The "big deal" op is that he considers your time and effort to be less important that his. Nobody thinks that's leaving wet clothes on the bathroom floor is ok. Nobody. But he does it because he can't be bothered and he knows that you will do a menial job that bores him. It's not an attractive trait.

YouTheCat · 17/10/2016 22:45

He might notice when he starts to run out of clothes.

BitOutOfPractice · 17/10/2016 22:47

Now I've caught up with your updates I see he is "great" at all if the stuff he doesn't consider to be women's / menial work. I assume that in his mind "women's" and "menial" are one and the same.

Seriously, he doesn't sound "great" at all. He sounds like a pathetic man child. How you continue to find him attractive is a mystery to me.

NuggetofPurestGreen · 17/10/2016 23:02

You know the 'leave the cups til there's none left' advice - i get the idea obviously but what about when the OP wants tea and there's nothing clean? Besides the horribleness of living in a dirty house.

OwlinaTree · 17/10/2016 23:04

Lolling so much at this, sorry, I know it's hard to live it. I also have a dh who leaves washing up on top of the dishwasher and clothes on the floor.

Clothes left outside the bedroom get chucked on his side of the bed. Clothes on bedroom floor get left there. I do sort the dishes because he mainly cooks. Occasionally he complains he's running out of socks. I look baffled and say when I last put a load on....

It doesn't bother me too much tbh, the thing that really annoys me is when he puts his washing on top of the laundry basket instead of inside it. I can see now a shirt dumped on the top.

graphista · 17/10/2016 23:09

My ex was a bugger for this kinda thing. His mother's advice was to put his stinky socks in his pillow case but I'd have had to sleep next to it! He wore a uniform for work and played 5-a-side so I just stopped washing it if it wasn't in laundry basket! Within a week he was out of shirts and his kit was mouldy! Didn't do it again.

Longdistance · 17/10/2016 23:12

Laundry strike op!

It's the only way he'll learn.

Leave it on the floor, and anything in the laundry basket that's his still doesn't get washed.

He'll soon run out of clothes.

My Dh used to do this with coffee mugs. I just left them in the end. He soon got the message

Buttercup95 · 17/10/2016 23:12

Mine is exactly the same, leaves empty packets on the worktop next to the bin, dirty washing on the floor on top of/next to the washing basket, etc etc. He'd had everything done for him by his mother when he lived at home, and I made a rod for my own back when we first moved in together though by not putting my foot down straight away, because I quite enjoyed playing house (even though we both worked full-time).

Fast-forward 15 years and it's no longer funny, especially now I'm trying to teach my children to clean up after themselves and help round the house, but they just see the example he is setting and tend to follow his lead, rather than mine 😡

Hillfarmer · 17/10/2016 23:13

Congratulations, you have a strategically incompetent husband.

PickAChew · 17/10/2016 23:14

DH does pull his weight (as much as I do!) but has such a blind spot with laundry. I've given up allowing him anywhere near the washer because he always breaks it. He's got the message about laundry going in and not next to the basket, after I pulled him up for the nth time about nagging DS1 for missing the bin with his rubbish. The only problem is, he keeps forgetting NOT to put wet things in the basket, with the result that everything they touch ends up wet and smelly and I have to re-prioritise my laundry for the day to make sure they get done.

I deal with badly done washing up by putting it back by the sink for him to do again next time it's his turn - or I serve his dinner off it.

My ex really was a filthy pig in all ways imaginable. Once i resolved never to pick up after him again, he'd end up sitting playing games with piles of dirty bowls and cups around him.

AdoraBell · 17/10/2016 23:16

yanbu OP

Every one here knows that if they want it washed it needs to be in the laundry basket. Not near, or on top of the lid. Inside

JellyBelli · 17/10/2016 23:18

Tell him if he doesnt think its a big deal not to pick up his stuff, then it wont be a big deal for him to pick it up either.
But it would mean a lot to you to not be treateed like his mother.

Lorelei76 · 17/10/2016 23:23

Ugh
Stop doing stuff for him

BMW6 · 17/10/2016 23:23

Oh dear OP - he thinks you are his Mum. Nip this in the bud now or you will regret it.
Don't make a fuss over it - just don't clear up his messes. Grit your teeth and ignore - in a month or so he will realise he needs to clean up after himself.

Don't see it, don't touch it. don't mention it. If you don't win LTB.

Kangamum · 17/10/2016 23:35

My OH was the worst for putting dirty stuff on the kitchen worktop,exactly right on top of where the dishwasher is. And it drove me mad. Even though I said time and time again it annoyed me and was lazy to put it there instead of taking an extra second to put it in the dishwasher, he continued to do it. Until I asked him one day, when you go for a wash, do you just stand outside the shower and expect to be clean by the power of fucking osmosis a few minutes later?? He looked confused and said what? No?? And I replied then how did he expect the bloody dishes to be cleaned by putting them beside the dishwasher instead of in it!?? It's the same logic! (Kind of but it made the point)
Once he stopped laughing he agreed that made sense and doesn't do it anymore! Maybe try and give him another similar scenario that he'plays understand.

Kangamum · 17/10/2016 23:37

That he'll* not he'plays. Mad phone.

Original poster

Jemimapyjamas · 18/10/2016 00:16

Sort of update: I got mad earlier as I came back downstairs (I went up as DS woke up coughing) and he had taken the dirty dinner plates into the kitchen and.... Left them on the counter above the dishwasher. My glaring appeared to give him the message and he cleared up everything from dinner clearly not understanding what the big deal was.

Later, in the bathroom where the growing heap of his dirty clothes currently resides, he apologised for not clearing them up immediately but said he didn't think I was a) coming back down and b) was going to later. Re b, he may well have put them in the dishwasher but the chances of the rest of it bring cleared away or washed are, I reckon, slim!

I reckon he will have run out of clean clothes, and have to be clambering over the dirty ones to reach the toilet, by Friday...

OP posts:

Lesley1980 · 18/10/2016 00:38

My husband leaves everything at his bum. He is messy & it doesn't bother him. He doesn't see the point tidying up after the kids either as they just pull it out again. I eventually got sick of it & started throwing out his stuff. Anything he left for me to pick up or clean I put in the bin. If it's too much work for him then it's too much for me.

He isn't perfect but he is better.

KickAssAngel · 18/10/2016 01:59

Any able bodied adult living in a house on a daily basis should contribute on a daily basis. (proportionate to how much free time they have)

Not to do so implies that the piss taker thinks of others as their skivvies and slaves. Anyone treating me like that would be shown the door.

And no, I don't expect to have to live in a shit heap until they learn.

Doesn't matter whatever other acts of heroism occasional chores, like DIY they do. Every single adult in this world should be able to care for themselves. Not to do so is both incompetent and infantile. DH and I sometimes trade chores (he does cat litter and I empty the dishwasher type deal) but DD has been putting her laundry in the basket since she was 6. And she has a disability which makes this genuinely hard for her.

woowoowoo · 18/10/2016 04:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

InTheDessert · 18/10/2016 05:47

Start getting your son to use the laundry basket sooner rather than later. I got laughed at by friends when the kids, as soon as they had reasonable grab reflexes, had to get hold of their dirty clothes and then be carried to drop them in the washing basket. Yes, it probably made work for me for a year - it most certainly would have been quicker to do it myself than pursuade a 6 month old to do it, but do you know what? I very very rarely find dirty clothes not in a laundry basket now.

Liiinoo · 18/10/2016 08:12

Woowoowoo

Soap dodging is certainly not confined to boys. Until my DDs reached secondary school age I would constantly have to remind them to shower every day and on occasion had to send them back up to shower again USING SOAP!. They grew out of it and are hygienic, fragrant young women'now.

Original poster

Jemimapyjamas · 18/10/2016 09:33

Inthedessert my son, who's four, does put his stuff in the laundry - I make a point of telling him to (he has to be asked but then he does it, I am hoping that eventually I won't have to ask.)

Just been talking to my neighbour - she knows about the bathroom floor situation and her DH is a sod for leaving washing up 'for later' and thinking it's pointless tidying up after kids as they make a mess anyway. Clearly we are not alone!

As for men being generally grubby buggers, I can unfortunately agree to an extent. While my DH isn't grotty with his personal hygiene or anything, other men I know (or have lived with, flatmates style) have had a few grey areas. Whether it's rarely changing their sheets, or hoovering or dusting, or more grim things like not washing properly. Ugh!

OP posts:

paap1975 · 18/10/2016 09:39

Keep it up, it works. A friend of mine had to stick at it for about 2 weeks, but she got long lasting results. You can also put his used glasses and plates at his place at the table and sweetly say something along the lines of "you left them out, so I thought you were planning on reusing them".

Flip

1 2 3 4