Are all men messy?

[username58]

My boyfriend is a lovely guy but he's just SO messy and it really gets to me sometimes. I'm not a clean clean person and I'm far from tidy but I like some things in a certain way that isn't unreasonable - towel put back on the holder, toilet roll to be changed when you finish the one before, toothpaste put back on the rack when finished with etc. I feel like I complain at my bf a lot about this kind of stuff and his response is 'I just didn't see it' or 'I don't notice these things' and when I talk to friends or people in work they say similar things about their partners/husbands and it got me wondering if all men are the same or are we just the idiots who put up with it?

My husband is exactly the same op, I'm constantly cleaning up after him. Clothes on the floor (next to the laundry bin), mugs and dirty dishes left on the bookshelf, boxes from parcels left on the stairs. I've done it for the past 7 years but now we have a baby on the way it's really starting to bother me and I'm always nagging at him.

@WeEE

Urg this drives me mad.

My parent we is absolutely amazing in every single other area. But he is f*cking messy.

He leaves bathroom towels on the bedroom floor after use EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, puts dirty plates all over the kitchen. They could be nicely piled by the side of the sink, but instead they are dotted all over the sides of the kitchen until there is no space. Throws his entire wardrobe on the floor every time he gets dressed and then just leaves it there until I put it away (months later).

I let it go until recently, and now I keep on at him to stop doing these things and now he thinks I'm a massive nag and gets really p*ssed off with me.

I think they just get used to us doing it for them and it doesn't even enter their head.

I think we have the same partner!

He sounds like a teenager !
My kids just stuff the towel on the rail, all scrunched up, when I’ve said a million times to hang it straight so it can dry.
And I seem to be the only one in the house who has clearance to put a new toilet roll on the holder.
And don’t start me in the crumbs left on the side when making toast etc.

This is the exact behaviour that has me dreaming of a one bedroom cottage on an island far away.

No, only one of the men I know is messy. He is 30 and still lives with his mum.

Dp is much tidier than me, but he has this one utterly infuriating habit of putting his sweaty socks on top of the washing machine, even when it's empty. And he never takes his cup into the kitchen when he's finished his tea.

I know far more messy women (one or two whose homes are so messy I avoid visiting them there even though they are lovely people).

Dh does the majority of the cleaning, I couldn't live with someone who was dumping stuff on the floor rather than putting it in the recycling bin or leaving food on the counters, it's just selfish/lazy and clearly expecting you to do it.

My ex would go to the bathroom, grab the deodorant and walk through the house spraying his armpits then dump the can on the mantelpiece in the lounge. Every time.

He would pile things beside the bin and beside the empty dishwasher. He once walked through the kitchen where I was sorting laundry to wash and dumped his pants ^on top* of the empty laundry basket.

When I asked why he had done that he said "didn't want to confuse you"

Notice. I said ex

No not all men. Your BF sounds more inconsiderate and lazy than messy and yes, you are an idiot for putting up with it.

Nope. My DH is much tidier than me. We both work full time but he definitely does more housework than me by a significant amount.

Pretty much every man in the military is the opposite of messy so no, it is not innate. It is purely chosen behaviour.

I think it’s worth sitting down with him for a serious chat, it’s possible for some people to change if they know what’s at stake. When I did this my DP said he thought I enjoyed cleaning the bathroom-HAHAHAHA. Then if he doesn’t change you can show him how to tidy- by putting him in the bin.

My husband is a neat freak and gets stressed out when there's any mess at all. Nightmare with small children in the house. I wish he'd chill out a bit and he wishes that I would tidy up after myself.

Threads like this just seem to highlight that people have different understandings of what constitutes mess/ tolerance levels toward mess. If I lived with my DP there'd be plenty of things that I could call out as messy that he'd find completely rational ways of living and vice versa. Ideally you find ways to compromise over your respective quirks and give and take a bit as life really is too short. Flatshares I was in as a student often decended into mutual nagging over being too messy or too tidy but life really is too short to bicker about the state of the living room table or the rogue box of cereal. Once you've gone down the married and kids route it is probably too late to try and change each other (not sure you should try anyway) so the question is more can you accept that people have different levels of tolerance for mess and that it's not a straightforward messy/wrong vs tidy/right thing. If you can't you're looking at a lifetime of bickering.

My DP is VERY tidy, I'm not and if we ever have an argument it's mostly down to this

People say messy like it's a character trait, it's not. It's a habit formed through laziness. No way would i ever pick up someone's dirty pants from the floor, i have 5 dc and they know to put them in the wash basket, anything else is disrespectful. My dh is naturally quite tidy anyway, but if he wasn't no way would i pick up after him. And telling someone to cop themselves on and do their bit is not nagging, that's just another label designed to shut women up.

My DH is obsessively tidy .

Me OTOH , not so much

He tidies, I clean. It works

My MIL is obsessed with cleaning/tidying and has no hobbies. She hasnt workedsince starting a family when she was in her early 20s. She actually enjoys cleaning, washing up, rearranging things "sorting out" etc although she doesnt like cooking. She treats everyone including FIL as if they are about 5 and picks out his clothes each day, tells him when to have a shower etc. I feel like this has given my DH some weird notion that all women like doing that kind of drudgery but we've been together long enough for him to realise I don't!

DP is messy. I'm quite untidy, but I'm capable of hanging a towel neatly and not splattering food across a massive area when cooking. And he doesn't clear up as he goes along, either, just leaves everything on the worktops.

My biggest bugbear is him leaving things that don't go in the dishwasher "to soak" in the sink, where I find them the following morning, full of cold, greasy water and general clag. Ffs, it's so much easier to run the hot tap, squirt a bit of washing up liquid on a sponge and actually wash the fucking thing! Warm grease is easier to clean off than cold grease.

He's a great cook though, so I suppose I shouldn't moan.

No they aren't all messy. If you intend living with them long term would recommend setting firm rules otherwise down the line it'll become a serious issue (for friends w messy husbands it is a major marital problem). Unless it genuinely doesnt bother you.

No, of course not... otherwise (predominantly male) army barracks would be chaos!

Some men care about being tidy, some don't. But the army proves that all men can learn to be tidy if sufficiently motivated.

It doesn't help when they have a mother / partner who picks up after them.