Trivial things my DH and I disagree on. Who is being unreasonable?

[CoffeeChocolateWine]

My husband likes things minimal. He doesn’t things to be on view. He’s not tidy, he just stuff things in cupboards so you can’t see them. I generally find this highly impractical in a family home with three children so we try and meet somewhere in the middle.

In our en-suite, he has decided it ‘really annoys’ him when I leave my toothbrush on the side of the sink after use. I use my brush, rinse it, wipe it and let it air dry upright. The shelves in our little wall cabinet are not tall enough to have a brush standing upright so he now keeps putting our damp toothbrushes in the drawer under the sink on their sides. For info, this drawer is also where our cleaning cloths go. I keep asking him not to because I think it’s unhygienic to put damp toothbrushes on their side in a drawer and not let them dry properly. He says he doesn’t want to have toothbrushes on view (I repeat, this is an en-suite so when he says ‘on view’, it is on view to me and him).

I know it’s a trivial, first world problem but my baby is sleeping and I have time on my hands! We don’t argue over it, but it is becoming an annoyance and he still puts my toothbrush in the drawer and it makes me feel a bit . So out of interest, who do you side with?

I really think that you need to take a hard line on this:

• Things cannot be 'tidied away' unless there is a suitable place to tidy them to.

• Shoving things messily into drawers and cupboards is NOT tidying, it is messy-ing. It tackles symptoms not causes (too much stuff, stuff with nowhere suitable to go, obsessive person with unrealsitic notions of family life and inadequate awareness of their role in achieving harmonious living) and causes other people more work.

• His mess is mess too - actually it's the worst mess, since he's the one who cares, so it demonstrates hypocrisy and an attitude of superior importance.

Honestly, I'd be tempted to retrieve all the stuff he's 'messied away', dump it on his side of the bed / desk and ask that he applies his ingenuity and passion for order to finding suitable places to house it tidily and accessibly.

Ah he designed it - badly then, if it doesn't work for its intended purpose!

Is he the sort of architect who designs ladies' loos with no space for sanitary towel bins, or kitchens without larders or broom cupboards?

I do understand his wanting a sanctuary of loveliness and his frustration at his inability to control other people's mess but, if the bathroom was designed well enough to be used intuitively and still stay tidy and you were being deliberately contrary, then he'd have a point. It doesn't sound like that.

My DH is the polar opposite and leaves things anywhere and everywhere - drives me crackers! I dream about living in a minimalist house one day, but it's just a dream. The only time he's different is if he's expecting a visitor and then all of a sudden everything just gets shoved into the nearest cupboard (not tidy) so that clutter is out of sight.

The only solution I can think of to your problem is to cut a small groove out of one of your cabinet shelves - if they are deep enough - so that you can stand your brush up in there. Personally though I wouldn't have an issue with an electric brush standing up in the corner of a sink shelf.

I am very much like your dh, I like all surfaces clear with minimal things on, people always comment how empty my kitchen sides look but I just prefer it this way! I have 2 young dc and still manage to keep it clear as they know to clear things away, although the tooth brush thing is odd and does sound unhygienic, Maybe look online or a holder for the tooth brushes let him pick one see if there is one he finds acceptable

Also do U want to swap dh because mine is the messiest human to ever live 😂

The en-suite is his design.
Maybe he should have designed it so it's fit for purpose then!

Oh please tell him this!

Where do you charge said toothbrushes by the way? Can you leave your toothbrush on the charger? And most hotel bathrooms don't have toothbrush-drying drawers either.

It's one thing to put his own toothbrush in the drawer, but putting yours there when you'd told him you don't like it? Rude. No ruder from his point of view than OP leaving it out when he'd told her he didn't like it.

HIBU imo. Could you get a cutlery thing to go in the drawer and you have your own bit to put your toothbrush in and it also keeps them away from the cloths which you can put in a basket?

Play him at his own game and organise the fuck out of your house. See how long and far you can push it until it even winds him up