AIBU - annoying domestic row. Who's right though?

[cuspish]

I got in first with kids, nearly 6pm already, so started cooking dinner quickly. DH got home ten mins later and started emptying bins and recycling.

They were needing done, but weren't overflowing and I was using them. There was room for carrot and potato peelings still in the compost bin, room for fish finger packet in recycling drawer, room for bag from frozen peas in the bin. I was planning on doing them after dinner.

It's not a big kitchen, so because he's pulling out the recycling drawer, emptying the compost bin I have to stop cooking because he's in the way, I can't get to the sink/cooker anymore and I have no where to put the rubbish. I ask him to stop and he says I should have done it before I started cooking and he wouldn't have to do it if "i'd been doing what I should"

i know it's deathly dull. but go on indulge me

I’m with you

Dinner is priority and when you started cooking they didn’t need doing as you had space to use them

My DH always thinks he’s being helpful when he’s just under my feet!!!

I feel your pain

YANBU - LTB

You are right, that would get right on my tits!

He said what??! You're cooking for him and he decides to police what other chores you have or haven't done?! Dear god. He was very very wrong.

he says he came in and straight away saw they needed doing and was amazed that I'd started cooking without doing them first.

I think he's OCD

I think you're a grown woman and you made a decision to cook first and empty the bins later. Neither is 'wrong' just different opinions. Him huffing and blocking you from cooking when you were there first and had already begun qualifies him as an arse.

It was unnecessary and point scoring and you would have even well within your rights to cheerily exclaim 'Oh you're taking over are you darling? Thanks so much I'll pop into the living room and put my feet up' and left him to it

You're right. It could have waited.

Seems like he was making the point that you should do the cooking, the recycling and the rubbish. Does he ever?

Bloody hell I'd down tools and both jobs would be his since he thinks he can do so much better.

Of course he's wrong. He also sounds awful, like it's some kind of one-up-manship. When he makes dinner, he gets to decide the order in which non-essential tasks get added to the essential task of feeding children.

thank you. I thought I might have been breaking some unwritten rule by the way he went on

Unwritten rule dh is our binman.

Hang on, you are complaining about a DP emptying the bin?
Do you want him never to do anything again?

YABVVU for calling your DH "OCD". OCD is a hugely debilitating mental health condition. It is hugely irritating to many of us whose lives have been blighted by it to hear this term bandied about.

On the other matter YANBU and he can make his own effing dinner.

You were right. Time is of the essence when it comes to getting dinner ready after work when you have hungry kids waiting. My husband seems to be able to find a million other “essential” jobs to do before getting around to switching the oven on/boiling the kettle/defrosting something.

Your husband is being unreasonable. I’d have told him to get out.

I actually do think he has OCD. His Dad does, and to such a level that he finds it impossible to eat outside his own home. He can't drink tap water, only ever stays in the same hotels. Won't use public transport. My MIL says it got worse with age. My DH definitely has the same tendencies. I worry he's going to get worse with age too and this kind of thing is an indicator.

He sounds annoying and rude but at the same time couldnt you have just squeezed up a bit and left the rubbish and peelings on the side till he replaced the bin. No need for a big fuss.

I got from your post that you were suggesting your dh really does have ocd rather than making a joke op.
Of course he is being a twat. Nothing worse than somebody under your feet when cooking. I also hate the bins being taken out unless they are at full capacity but that just might be me.

I’m guessing that there wasn’t just those 2 things that could have been done (tea and bins). DH is a bit like this. He’ll start stripping the bed if I’m hoovering the bedroom. Piss off and do any of the other thousand things that could be done. Or when there’s kids in the mix talk through there day, see where they stand with gym kits/homework/friendship woes.
I have been known to shout “this is a 3 bedroom house why can I reach out and touch everyone that lives here right now!”

OK, so if he does have OCD and this is a symptom of it, it won't be about him being rude and entitled, it would be about him having distressing intrusive thoughts (possibly about cleanliness). Doesn't mean he gets to dictate what jobs you do or to expect his family to revolve around intrusive thoughts, but it would be coming from a different place than the opening post suggests and would require some help and some understanding. If your FIL has OCD you probably know this already, but if not it might be worth googling OCD UK and OCD Action to get advice on sources of support.

Is he showing any general signs of anxiety?

DP doesn't get that occasionally you'll cook something quick in a corner of the kitchen first, just so the kid is fed and only after worry about tidying it.

I've been known to take DS to Subway because DP started a deep fecking clean of the kitchen instead of sorting dinner.

yes he's really stressed and fed up this week. Been bursting into tears and grumping at me, blaming everything on me

Nonibaloni I'm so stealing that! Even the cat follows me

Would he be prepared to go to the doctor to talk about what's going on for him?

OCD is horrible, frightening and isolating. I've suffered from it for 30 years (had horrific times where I've been utterly terrified and paralysed by it from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell asleep - but also good times - I'm in a good place right now). There is help and treatment and things can get better.

I also know what a pain in the arse it is for others to live with and do sympathise.

Best treatment is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Exposure and Response Prevention therapy (other talking therapies can open up potential to ruminate which can be unhelpful during a crisis) - both the websites I mentioned have links to the NICE guidelines that can be printed out to take to the GP.