About bath towels

[Sleepthiefsmum18]

Just gone to shower and discovered my bath towel is missing. It’s in DH’s gym bag. He has no concept of a towel being someone’s and just uses any he finds that’s dry. I’ve just discovered he currently has 4(!!) towels on the go. It drives me bonkers. I like to have my own towel and when it’s dirty I put it in the wash and get a clean one. Surely this is normal?!? I hate the thought of someone else using “my” towel. I don’t want to dry my face on something that’s been on someone else’s arse (my own arse is fine). AIBU? DH doesn’t see the problem.

Growing up we were a colour-coded towel household, I think we each had 2 sets and they were artfully colour co-ordinated (I remember us picking colours from the tile pattern when the bathroom was redone!) so the bathroom still looked ‘stylish’.

Now me and DP we have just beautiful white fluffy towels, and we do share, but not the same towel on the same day. Clean white towels are rolled like in a spa and live on a shelf in the bathroom looking lovely, ‘on the go’ towels are hung to dry on hooks and re-used a few times before going in the laundry. If the only option on the hooks was damp then I’d take a fresh one. I only have bath towels that are big enough, hate piddly small towels.

I still colour code though. White ones are for at-home use only. I have another colour that goes out of the house for swimming/gym etc (and washed when comes home so doesn’t need to be hanging around, lives in cupboard between uses), hand towels a third colour that matches the bathroom, and the dog has her own set in her own colour as well, so there is never any confusion!

No kids yet but I think if/when we get to the stage of children bathing independently I’d instigate my mother’s colour code system. Especially if it was 3 teenage boys! I had an ex who was just more minging and less considerate in general than my current DP, and I did instigate colour coded towels with him - his were black so I didn’t have to see skid marks hanging around 🤢 honestly why I stayed with him as long as I did I cannot fathom now. Now-DP does laundry more often than me I think.

I should say, DD has her own swimming towel for school, because I'm not writing names on every single bath towel in the house.