To be having a (secret) stand-off with DH over an empty shampoo bottle?

[Cheekyweegobshite]

Over the years it has become apparent that removing empty bottles of shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste packaging etc from the bathroom is 'my job'.

We finished a bottle of shampoo last Saturday and I duly removed it from the shower and placed it on the bathroom counter to take down to the recycling. Then I thought sod it and I left it there to see how long it would take DH to notice it.

It's still there. In the last day or two I've started moving it around - I put it in the sink, he duly removed it and put it back by the sink. I put it on 'his' side of the counter yesterday, he moved it back to the sink. I put it on the floor, he picked it up and put it by the sink.

Why doesn't he just take it downstairs to the bin???

You need a recycling bin upstairs- even just one stops a lot of stuff getting just chucked that would go in the recycling if downstairs!

I've got an open waste paper bucket shaped one you can satisfyingly lob a loo-roll core into while sat on the loo so everyone loves to, nothing hangs around on my bathroom sides!

My dh puts empty bottles back in a bathroom cupboard (beneath the sink so reasonable size). Have to sort it all out to chuck them away. We have been married for donkey years and I have given up having a go at him. Life is too short.

I got fed up of putting empty loo roll tubes in the bin. DH and DS would get a new loo roll out but leave the empty one in bathroom. I decided to only move the ones I changed.
It became apparent quite quickly that this wasn't working but I kept going. 16(!!) empty rolls later and I'd had enough. Took a pritt stick and glued them together into a 'pyramid style tree' and left it there. They thought it was hilarious and for a while did remove them! Not too bad now!

Oh I couldn’t be arsed with this nonsense. Ask him to bring the bottle down next time he is up there. Or just bring it yourself. Life’s too short for this shit.

My house it’s the garage keys. He wears them on a lanyard which is retry grubby and dirty from the work he does outside. We have key safe in handy place which they go in. It doesn’t get locked itself unless we’re going out, so is open. But they don’t get put in there. They get left on the nice clean kitchen worktop right next to the safe.

Every time I find them I “sweep” them off the top onto the floor by the wall as I clean hte work top down, Every time he says where are the keys? Every time he finds them on the floor. And every time he leaves them on the work top again
🤦‍♀️

There was a thing on Facebook where a mum stuck a fiver under a bit of rubbish that her household were walking past. I don't know how long she waited before divulging what everyone had missed out on. I'm so tempted to do similar but knowing my luck that would be the one time the DC picked it up and binned it without looking & bin the cash as well

I found a button on the bathroom floor yesterday evening, so I put it on the windowsill. It's not mine.

I wonder how long it will stay there...

I feel guilty reading this thread.

In our house, this is DH's job. I don't know if it irritates him, he just does it. In my defence, I really struggle with this kind of basic task (suspect adhd - have a thread going on at the moment) but I can see that it might be annoying.

I will make more effort.

I have gone as far as hiding things like new shampoo or hand soap until he's forced to ask for it. My pettiness has no limits.

My OH never throws empty packaging away. This does occasionally come in handy when he nicks stuff and then tell me I must have forgotten that I used it.

No love, I know it was you because you took the last lighter and left the empty fucking packet in the drawer (and me without a lighter).

(We may also have lighter wars)

I have this with my stepchildren who are adults. We have a drawer with toilet rolls in the bathroom. I would think if you take the last one out you would refill the drawer from where they are kept under the stairs. Approx 4 steps from the bathroom but no. Sadly I can never hear them if they are in the bathroom shouting that they have no loo roll. I keep one in my wash bag for such occasions. Drive me mad.

@paralysedbyinertia

I feel guilty reading this thread.

In our house, this is DH's job. I don't know if it irritates him, he just does it. In my defence, I really struggle with this kind of basic task (suspect adhd - have a thread going on at the moment) but I can see that it might be annoying.

I will make more effort.

Yep me too - husband does this. I think he enjoys it though. He likes to be organised and never run out of things. That suits my disorganised self down to the ground!

I wonder if the husband on this thread just thinks his wife likes the responsibility, that he thinks it’s her area and it’s an unspoken thing that maybe needs to be aired.

Op sounds like me.
For the past year, I leave empty loo tubes on the floor where he's dropped them.
The bin is right next to the loo.
His mouldy dreg cups are left in the bathroom I don't clear them.
Empty shower gels etc are left in the shower.
Man blindness is liberating. I don't care nobody else does.
What's great is no visitors no concerns.
He picks his crap up eventually, it's really not my concern.

I think we should stop thinking that it's a man /woman thing. As a woman I have, in the past felt bad at being naturally disorganised. I would have been pleased
If my husband wasn't bothered, because I wouldn't have felt so guilty. It's a stereotype that women are naturally notice things like this and that men leave stuff around. I don't feel bad anymore, after both my husband and I play to our strengths and are happier.

@easterndreaming

I think we should stop thinking that it's a man /woman thing. As a woman I have, in the past felt bad at being naturally disorganised. I would have been pleased If my husband wasn't bothered, because I wouldn't have felt so guilty. It's a stereotype that women are naturally notice things like this and that men leave stuff around. I don't feel bad anymore, after both my husband and I play to our strengths and are happier.

To be fair, a lot of posters here have to deal with this from their DH/DP and it irritates them, so that’s why we are talking about it in these very familiar dynamics. I suppose it’s easier to say it’s a bad man thing than a bad partner thing.

I know exactly why my DP does this: if he is working he is entirely focussed on that and doesn't spend any time clearing up after himself. His answer if asked why he hasn't done something is that he hasn't done it yet. I'm someone who clears up as I go along - arguably I'm prioritising the wrong things sometimes, but I prefer things to be clean and tidy to help me concentrate.

Our main issue is his unopened mail left to stack up which once lost us the chance to change home insurance and save ££. Solutions? 1. Change name on insurance to joint names and deal with insurance myself. I like the control - should have done it years ago. 2. Issued clear warning that if mail is not dealt with within a week I open it. I carried out the threat once - it only took one time.
I have also dealt with the toothpaste situation by opening another tube and keeping it somewhere else just for me until he finally had to Chuck the old one and sort out a replacement. Very PA admittedly but highly amusing as I wondered how long it would take him before he could no longer squeeze any more out and had to deal with it. Tbh it wasn’t the empty tube left around that was my issue as he did Chuck it eventually in the bathroom bin it was that he would never get the new one out. Never.

So I hid the empty bottle of shampoo before I left this morning and will bring it back out once the cleaner leaves this afternoon. Strangely, he showered in a different bathroom this morning - was this to avoid using the remaining conditioner? Is he on to me? 🤔

Invisible to the eyes empty bottles live here too.
DP will clean the bathroom and put them on the shelf empty.

My DH doesn’t seem to see mess. He sees cleaning or tidying beyond the point of functionality to be a waste of time. He’d see no problem with leaving an empty shampoo bottle out so long as there was still plenty of surface space for what he needed to do. He will take stuff to the bin, but only when the stuff has attained enough of a critical mass to make it worth his while. We had some discussions with me saying I feel I have to either live in a mess or constantly clean up after him and him feeling like he can’t relax in his own home. I don’t think either of us are wrong. We’ve found a sort of liveable middle ground now.

The only time I lost my shit with him was about 9 or so years ago when the DC were young and I was running around trying to tidy the house. He said “I don’t know why you bother, the cleaner is coming tomorrow morning” and I had to incredulously point out that was exactly why I was running around and that the cleaner was paid to clean not tidy. I was incandescent with rage that in all the years we’d had a cleaner; (a) he thought £25 was a reasonable price to pay someone to not only clean his house but pick up and put away the crap he couldn’t be bothered to, and; (b) it had not sunk into his thick head that I was the one running around tidying up after him.

I still get angry when I think about it!

I recently lost a stand off and I'm still bitter about it.

DH slept in the spare bed as he was a contact case for covid.

We don't have a spare room - the spare bed is in a largish open space at the top of the stairs. It's usually set up as a sort of day bed with cushions and a throw on it.

It stayed for about 2 weeks exactly as DH had left it the last morning he got out of it. Sheets on it instead of the throw. Duvet rumpled and half open. Book, tablet, glass of water type paraphernalia on the floor next to the bed.

Because of where it is, we all had to walk past it several times a day.

After about 2 weeks I asked if he would tidy it and put it back to how it normally is. 2 days later, he took the sheets off but left them ON TOP OF the rumpled duvet so it actually looked worse.

I cracked at that point and put the sheets in the laundry, tidied the duvet away and put the throw and cushions back in place.

I mainly did it because I knew my teenage girls were itching to do it cos it was annoying them and I really didn't want them to do it (or be annoyed by it anymore).

I just won my stand off over the kitchen bin and the box of medications (long story of a spilt cough syrup bottle and decamping of everything else to clean). DP is genuinely usually pretty good but over the last year with me being at home we had settled into a habit of me doing everything as I wasn't officially working. I didn't really mind because if I needed him to do something he did it without question.

Then I went back to work on Monday and its almost like he forgot that he would need to pick up the slack. So stand off ensues. He just broke.

I think the reminder message has done its job.

@Cheekyweegobshite

So I hid the empty bottle of shampoo before I left this morning and will bring it back out once the cleaner leaves this afternoon. Strangely, he showered in a different bathroom this morning - was this to avoid using the remaining conditioner? Is he on to me? 🤔

If he is, you need to escalate somehow. Not sure how though. Good luck!

Wait until the next empty bottle and any loo rolls you could do a wedding scene then add children in the future

How's the stand off going op? Does your Dp know he's participating in one yet? 😂