To put all of yesterday's washing up on DH's car bonnet

[drfostersbra]

I cook, DH washes up. Well that's the agreement that we come to every few months after a huge row when I ask why he has decided not to wash up again.

If there's one thing that pushes my buttons, it's coming downstairs in the morning after cooking a lovely meal the night before and finding stinking dirty washing up.

I'm at home all day with our very mobile baby today and there's no side board space to prepare food and a bad smell that I have to sit with all day.

Bastard.
So would I be U to put it all in on his car bonnet so he will need to move it before he starts his day (as I will have to do)
It annoys me that it's always good for a few months then he leaves it for one night, I let it go, 2 nights I think 'oh he must be tired I'll do it', 3 nights hmm he's slacking. 4 nights arggggh!

[expatinscotland]

'No. This is about him and his refusal to keep his side of the bargain. Not me and how I leave the kitchen when I cook.'

This! Because it appears he does nothing in the home using his own initiative. Lifework=women's work.

[OliviaBenson]

You are not wrong op!

When things have calmed down, you need to have a chat about it. Lay it out on the line that you are not the default maid.

If he does it again, keep just moving the stuff to where you put it today. Don't say anything, just keep doing it quietly. I'd also stop doing any of his clothes washing etc without making a fuss.

Stuff like this makes me really cross.

[timeisnotaline]

For gods sake? have you tried talking reasonably? yes, about a billion times I think. Reasonable doesn't cut it with entitled selfish partners who think they are too special to wash dishes or do life work in general. Why do people think that the dhs marriage is not his problem but his wife's?!

[timeisnotaline]

Also , I wouldn't calm down. But my dh does get it now and wouldn't childishly sulk. Which would make me hit the roof. You should suggest that you stop pulling your weight at all and if he gets upset you get to sulk. So much easier than actually doing something.

[LyannaStarktheWolfMaid]

What is the OP doing while the husband should be washing up? This is significant, I think. If one person is working, everyone is working. So if the OP is doing other jobs, bathing baby etc then absolutely fair enough. Or sleeping early because of night feeds etc. If the OP is sitting with her feet up on the basis that she cooked dinner while DH was working- that's not on, and the DH has a right to feel aggrieved. I feel this is unlikely though!

[TheLegendOfBeans]

All I'm gonna add OP is try your damndest to not mimic him or copy his silly stance. By doing that you gift him the role of "parent" and the baton of being unreasonable passes from him to you, enabling the point of the matter to be lost as focus shifts from the crux of the matter (his abdication of responsibility) to you acting unreasonably and therefore not worthy of a platform.

I know it's a bit early for such psychobabble but let me rephrase; my XH was a hysterical, childish, gaslighting shit who'd wind and wind me up. The MOMENT that I lost control he'd go into Victorian Dad mode and shut the conversation down and walked away.

If - truly - you think this is an endemic issue you guys may wish to think about counselling as there might be a fundamental mismatch here as to what your ideas of what makes a harmonious home. It might just iron out the kinks which are causing the ructions.

[NC04]

I sympathise.

I'm lucky, as DP does do the washing up (I do the cooking), but ten years down the line he still doesn't seem to know where some of the stuff goes when they're dry, so they just stay out on the side. The cheese grater lives on the bread bin, apparently!

It's the other stuff he's not so good at. I honestly can't remember the last time he did the bathroom - maybe Feb, when I was away. Definitely not since then. I asked him this a few weeks ago and his only reply was "But I always do the hoovering!". I usually leave him one room to do on a Sunday so I can get on with dinner, but he often just puts the hoover away, so not 'always'. I left that room a few months ago to see how long it would take him to get round to doing it. I cracked after 3 weeks as it was disgusting.

A couple of weeks ago he declared we'd need to do a big clean as his friend was coming to stay. Of course, the day we were going to do it he buggered off for a drink with another friend, came home and had another, and then his friend turned up 5 hours early. He did hoover that one room the next day, mind, but that's all. So, I've decided I'm leaving the bathroom until he does it. It will get manky, but I don't care. I'm wondering how many weeks it will take.

This is the same guy who, months ago, promised he'd help me with the kitchen cupboards. Of course, he buggered off when he said he'd help, so I left them. The next day he kindly cleaned ONE of them, then said, in all sincerity, "That's it, isn't it?". I have no idea how he thought cleaning one of about 12 was "it"!

[annielouise]

I agree with you drfostersbra - it's because the consequences of what they do don't affect them.

My ex used to leave his clothes all over the floor. I used to put dirty socks in his briefcase, in his guitar, in the hood of his hoodie, scrunched up in his shoes, etc and see how long he'd take to run out of stuff (this is when I was on maternity leave so took on the washing). He didn't get it so I stopped washing for him completely. Then bit by bit due to this and other similar things you don't want sex with them as there's a coldness between you and you end up splitting up so I can see how, in that article, people get divorced over a cup left by the sink and not in the dishwasher.

It's tiresome but only cook for yourself from now on (but what a way to have to conduct a marriage), keep your plates separate from him and keep a stock of paper plates. The fact that anyone can start thinking like that - of reducing the relationship to be that of flatmates - shows how insidious this behaviour of his is, because the alternative is you put up with it for the sake of peace and harmony and I could never do that and don't think any woman should have to.

Can you do a DHL delivery of the stuff to his work and tell him if he's that lazy can he start taking the dishes into work and do them in the work dishwasher.

[Butterymuffin]

FFS, the number of posters desperate to find a way to make this OP's fault, or responsibility to fix, is astonishing.

And Lyanna I totally disagree. They've agreed to do one job each. While one person is doing theirs, the other can be sitting eating bonbons if they want. What you're saying assumes that the husband works during the day and the OP doesn't. She is on mat leave looking after their baby!

[Nettletheelf]

There you go, OP. It's your own fault for using too many pans when cooking, apparently. Glad we got that straight.

Back in the real world: stick to your guns and don't put up with his nonsense.

My DH tried to pull something similar to this when we were first married: claimed that not cleaning the bathroom when it was his turn wasn't so bad because "it's not one of my KPIs". I soon showed him that it was!

[guilty100]

". Reasonable doesn't cut it with entitled selfish partners who think they are too special to wash dishes or do life work in general."

I agree, but I think if reasonable discussion doesn't work, you don't really have anything to look forward to but a lifetime of conflict, right? If you marry a guy who refuses to 'hear' you, then you have a problem. It's not the OP's fault that he is behaving this way in any way, shape, or form - but she either has to solve his behaviour somehow (which is proving difficult, since all reasonable tactics have failed), or she has to leave, or she puts up with a lifetime of it, or she has to come up with a way of avoiding the issue, e.g. by getting him to sell his studio and using the proceeds to buy a dishwasher . In all cases, she has agency and power. Simply sitting around and saying "I empathize, he's being a wanker, he ought to do the washing up even though he's not doing it, repeatedly, in spite of being told" doesn't really solve anything.

I think we have a huge cultural problem with blokes like this. They have been brought up by over-indulgent parents simply not to "see" the domestic labour that goes into reproducing their lifestyle every day. They don't acknowledge it, they don't offer to contribute, they don't do a fraction of the mental or physical work, yet they would be lost without it. When the issue is raised with them, they will sit and nod but nothing changes. The result is a grotesque degree of domestic inequality, with trodden-down women working until they drop to support self-indulgent men who think that labour stops with the end of the working day. I don't know any way of making this stop, because the entitlement of these guys is like a form of deafness. They can't hear someone else's suffering and tiredness over what they personally want. The only solution I have found is not to be with blokes like this, effectively to boycott hem - because there are PLENTY who are not like it, proving that there is absolutely no causal connection between possession of a cock and being unable to work the hoover or the dishcloth.

[speakout]

The only solution I have found is not to be with blokes like this, effectively to boycott hem - because there are PLENTY who are not like it

Same here.

Life is too short.

There are plenty of decent men around.

And if these dossers don't get the chance to spread their genetic material there will be no offspring to see bad role models.

[speakout]

I do however think that women are often complicit.

[banivani]

"it's not one of my KPIs"

OM MY SWEET GOD. I don't know whether to laugh or cry!

[FizzyGreenWater]

I suggest you torpedo the sulking/ not talking stage by asking for a meeting, this evening...

...where you calmly (see, you can do calm too) tell him that if this really is the way life is going to be, that this is the person he is - then you want to split. Because you really know, absolutely know deep down that you will not live a life where you are a skivvy, where you feel you don't really have a partnership and a little part of you hates your husband and feels that he isn't your friend. And you now have a child, and you don't want to wait for three years until the relationship has totally soured, you'd rather split now when she's too young to remember it and you can move on and find the person you really can love and respect for a lifetime.

All this over washing up? No. It's not really about washing up, is it? It's about respect, teamwork, love, family. All the basics. He can be as 'calm and resonable' as he likes. His actions show him as a screaming toddler who isn't a dad and partner.

So tell him - this is it. And that you plan to bypass the sulking/not talking bit this time, as you've had a fucking bellyful of that too.

[SistersOfPercy]

I completely understand where you're coming from. We operate the same here, whoever cooks the other washes up. It's not about who does more work outside of the house it's about sharing dull tasks so the house runs that bit smoother.

I remember when we first got married (20+ years ago) I felt like I spent half my life following him around picking up crap he'd left. One day I snapped and everything I'd picked up that day (shoes, mugs, crisp packets etc) were carefully placed in his side of the bed. He got a lot better after that.

[Whinesalot]

I would avoid conversation about it from now on. You getting wound up is getting you nowhere. Each and everytime you do something (even unrelated maybe) that makes life unpleasant or inconvenient for him.
Don't respond to his annoyance to this other than to repeat mildly "I feel like this everytime you don't wash up. Annoying isn't it"

[InDubiousBattle]

There was a similar thread on here ages ago about a had bloke who wouldn't pick up afetr himself and a poster had printed out shit loads of pieces of paper with 'I'll just leave this here for Mary to deal with' on. She put one on every towel, sock, dirty mug etc her dh left lying about. After getting through loads out of these she printed out ones with 'Fuck you Mary' on because that was genuinely how it made her feel when he left his stuff about. Some people seem to find it impossible to understand that just because they don't find something annoying, their partner does.

[nanimobars]

Sorry but if you are home all day then you should rightly cook and also clean up IMO. Your DH is working all day and when you are at home your job is to take care of your baby, but also the house. On a weekend maybe then you have a point of sharing duties.

[timeisnotaline]

nani Did you read the part where op works as well? And takes care of the baby?
Also who the hell said giving birth makes you a domestic slave. I see so many stories on here of women doing housework and organising things till late while their dh comes home and sits on the sofa. Then the woman gets up 4 times a night for a baby while their dh sleeps. Their dhs would agree with you - bringing in a salary is all they think they need to do.

[Ropsleybunny]

Read the fucking thread before you start laying into the OP.

[expatinscotland]

'Sorry but if you are home all day then you should rightly cook and also clean up IMO. Your DH is working all day and when you are at home your job is to take care of your baby, but also the house. On a weekend maybe then you have a point of sharing duties.'

And this, my friends, is where entitled sexists come from. Who wiped their arses before they got married? That would be Mummy, of course!

Do yourselves a favour, people, marry adults who aren't sexists. If you find you've procreated with one who didn't show his/her true colours until then, don't have another child with him/her. It will only get worse.

[LagunaBubbles]

Sorry but if you are home all day then you should rightly cook and also clean up IMO. Your DH is working all day and when you are at home your job is to take care of your baby, but also the house. On a weekend maybe then you have a point of sharing duties

Well your opinion doesnt mean that much if its not based on actually reading the OPs posts, guess you missed the bit that she says she works to?

[PoorYorick]

when you are at home your job is to take care of your baby, but also the house.

Leaving aside the fact that OP works, in the evenings he's home too. So why the fuck can't he pitch in his share as he agreed to do?

Heh. You know the answer you're thinking and so does everyone else, but you're not going to come right out and say it because you know exactly how it sounds....