Washing up gate, who was unreasonable?

[Homerenonovice]

I won’t give the full back story as I want opinions based on the facts rather than from the angels we were each coming from.

I had just done all the washing up/ loaded the dishwasher. Walked up stairs and DH was rushing out the room to go to a work meeting and had another few bits of washing up.

I said oh I’ve just done the washing up and have people coming over, can you just leave it in the bedroom for now so it’s out of sight.

DH said no, my hands are full I’m putting the washing up in the sink where washing up goes.

I took the washing up back out the sink back upstairs and put it on his bedside table.

Was I being unreasonable?

[quote Homerenonovice]@JamAutistically he threw the shake bottle across the bedroom whilst our one year old child was in the room. I ran upstairs thinking something else had happened and he aggressively shouted at me so much that it made our child cry! I then got the silent treatment for the evening.

This is why I didn’t give the full back story originally, I wanted to reflect on my own actions in the situation itself and not have everyone focus on his reaction.[/quote]
You know...Before I asked you, I went and changed my vote to YANBU.

I still think you were BU to go put the plates back but the more I read your post and thought about it (probably assuming), the more I felt you were in a tug-o-war with your dh but he's the aggressor and you resort to being PA back or petty just to offload your frustrations, and it's understandable. (Perhaps I'm still assuming).

I also recognised his behaviour (and a possible pattern) from my own personal experience in the past.

My last post about him not doing as you asked, seeing that it didn't change anything for him anyway got me thinking that. I'm not surprised he'd overreact like that, which is why I asked.

I feel for you because it seems deeper than just the plates. (I may be making wrong assumptions here but I sense it that way).

It's threads like this that makes me realise why divorce rates are so high.

Such drama over a few bloody pots.

I don't know where folk find the energy to argue over such trivial crap.

OP,

I am really sorry you are having such a tough time and some people have beeb harsh and made aspersions about your possible mental health, for doing what you did.

It does not sound like a great dynamic.

Are you doing too much simply because you work part time?

Have you family and friends to reach out to for support?

Throwing a bottle in the presence of a child and causing that child to be understandably upset is dreadful.

No doubt posters will blame you for that too. 🙄

Awful behaviour.

Mind yourself.

@GrandDuchessRomanov

It's threads like this that makes me realise why divorce rates are so high.

Such drama over a few bloody pots.

I don't know where folk find the energy to argue over such trivial crap.

It's not really about the "bloody pots" is it?

I feel for you because it seems deeper than just the plates. (I may be making wrong assumptions here but I sense it that way).

In case it wasn't clear, I meant your relationship issues seem deeper than just about the plates and they could just be the straw that broke the camel's back. As a one off, it would seem trivial but as an ongoing sign of disrespect, undermining you, not appreciating you, blowing up over little things, being inconsiderate, etc, it's a bigger issue.

It sounds like he's a bit of a twat OP and won't do things that the little woman asks him to when he has big important work to go to and she's just a part timer. It sounds like it's all turning a bit toxic with you ending up looking petty because you're so sick of his twattery. He's now asserting his dominance by getting angry and throwing things around not even bothered that his young child is there. I'd say it's a slippery slope and likely to only be down hill from here OP. Please look after yourself and your dc.

Don't do them OP. He's bringing you back into line. Put them somewhere out of sight for now. I really would choose this battle me.

@GrandDuchessRomanov

It's threads like this that makes me realise why divorce rates are so high.

Such drama over a few bloody pots.

I don't know where folk find the energy to argue over such trivial crap.

You think this is about the dishes, Seriously?

@Homerenonovice

Do you know what is really ironic, I’ve just got home from work with the children and there is a glass, a travel coffee cup and a normal coffee cup in the sink. It’s all DH’s from this morning/ his work bag.

I have guests coming round again tonight and I know it’ll be there until I tidy it but I’m not half as bothered because I hadn’t literally just tidied it up and I’m not cooking dinner with guests and he didn’t ignore my explicit wishes for it to not be there.

Yep. I totally get the difference.

It's clear he was being an arse for the sake of it about the plates...and he's probably an arse about a lot of things.

Anyone else click on the thread because they wondered what a washing up gate was?

Threads on here never fail to amuse me.

They always have the same pattern and comments.

I suppose I'd better throw my opinion into the mix....

I think you were ridiculously unreasonable.

I don't think it's amusing.
In isolation it may look petty but its actually the long line of repeated selfish behaviours that dismiss OP's wishes not be considered the house skivvy. Him overruling her request ("I'm going to put them exactly where you told me not to") and aggressive outburst when she defied him was showing her the place he sees her in the pecking order (below him naturally).

I'm a little over invested in this because washing up dumped in the sink was a real bugbear when we had a nanny. She would cook for my youngest child, herself and her two children at my house (absolutely fine) but leave sticky pans, bowls, cutlery dumped in the sink and the worktops splattered. I asked many times, please put the stuff in the dishwasher or even on the side. NOT the sink. One of the first things I wanted to do when I got home at 7 was start dinner and I needed the sink to wash and peel vegetables. Not deal with someone else's meal mess before I could even get access to the bloody sink. I'm sure it suited her very nicely to feed her family and not have to clear up but it meant I had to do it. She would giggle when I asked her and say she "forgot". It was one of the reasons I couldn't face re-employing her after lockdown.

If it had been once or twice, maybe petty to retaliate but when someone is repeatedly ignoring your polite requests to make your life a tiny bit easier with some small efforts, it starts to feel like an insidious drip drip drip of having the piss taken every day.

@honeylulu

You clearly are very kind and tolerant.

I would be SO intolerant in the face of such blatantly ridiculous behaviour.

I’m with you, OP, yes it’s petty, but they weren’t doing any harm in the bedroom for a bit longer, and why wouldn’t he just take them back in there? I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to view the sink as a magic dirty crockery receptacle - it’s literally putting them right in the way for anyone else in the house and saying “tidy my stuff up before you can do anything else with this sink”. If he puts it in there, he should wash it up. Both my h and I work and we both manage to wash up after ourselves.

YANBU and slightly strange. What difference does it make if you have dirty dishes in the sink

Good God woman, chill out!

You have a dishwasher. Just put it all to one side until you can unload and reload the dishwasher. If your friends judge you on having a couple of unwashed pots, they're probably not very nice friends.

PS: I would love a dishwasher.

Yabu

"I think it’s incredibly disrespectful to view the sink as a magic dirty crockery receptacle - it’s literally putting them right in the way for anyone else in the house"

This is what I was also thinking.

Surely it all just has to be taken out again to wash up?

Maybe it's not such a hindrence if you have a dishwasher to put it into?

You are not being unreasonable to expect him to honour your work in clearing the decks ready for cooking. And it is not unreasonable to remove the items in order to return the kitchen to the state you wanted it to be in.

But if you told him your reason was so the items would be out of sight, and then moved them to try and teach him a lesson, then I can see why he would find that annoying. It's a less powerful reason and less respectful behaviour.

Yes YABU, dirty stuff lives in the sink or dishwasher. It’s totally counter intuitive to take it from the sink into the bedroom. I would either have washed them up (and asked my DH to do something else later) or put them to one side and used the sink. Your friend probably wouldn’t have noticed. But my DH and I genuinely share the housework equally and he’s happy to do his bit which is why it probably wouldn’t bother me to wash a few bits before I did some cooking.

The dishes were already in the bedroom so I think it's absolutely fine that you asked him to leave them there. You'd already cleaned up, he knew you were having friends over, you explained why you would like him to leave them there, I don't see why he had to be so stubborn and insist on bringing them down then unless he was going to be washing them which you say he wasn't.
I don't see how it's anymore minging to leave them there for a couple more hours when they were already there long enough for the food to dry on them.

@Sh05

The dishes were already in the bedroom so I think it's absolutely fine that you asked him to leave them there. You'd already cleaned up, he knew you were having friends over, you explained why you would like him to leave them there, I don't see why he had to be so stubborn and insist on bringing them down then unless he was going to be washing them which you say he wasn't. I don't see how it's anymore minging to leave them there for a couple more hours when they were already there long enough for the food to dry on them.

You might have missed thr point of the post, the argument was not about leaving them there, it’s the fact he didn’t, he brought them down and put them in the sink

So she took dirty dishes out the sink and hid them in her bedroom to prevent her friend seeing them,

If you think that’s normal, and I doubt you do, that’s concerning.

I didn’t just take dishes upstairs to hide them from a friend coming round. There is a huge difference and that would be really weird

Well yes, it would be, we all agree, so why did you take the dirty dishes out the sink and go and hide them in your bedroom before your friend came?

@honeylulu

I don't think it's amusing. In isolation it may look petty but its actually the long line of repeated selfish behaviours that dismiss OP's wishes not be considered the house skivvy. Him overruling her request ("I'm going to put them exactly where you told me not to") and aggressive outburst when she defied him was showing her the place he sees her in the pecking order (below him naturally).

I'm a little over invested in this because washing up dumped in the sink was a real bugbear when we had a nanny. She would cook for my youngest child, herself and her two children at my house (absolutely fine) but leave sticky pans, bowls, cutlery dumped in the sink and the worktops splattered. I asked many times, please put the stuff in the dishwasher or even on the side. NOT the sink. One of the first things I wanted to do when I got home at 7 was start dinner and I needed the sink to wash and peel vegetables. Not deal with someone else's meal mess before I could even get access to the bloody sink. I'm sure it suited her very nicely to feed her family and not have to clear up but it meant I had to do it. She would giggle when I asked her and say she "forgot". It was one of the reasons I couldn't face re-employing her after lockdown.

If it had been once or twice, maybe petty to retaliate but when someone is repeatedly ignoring your polite requests to make your life a tiny bit easier with some small efforts, it starts to feel like an insidious drip drip drip of having the piss taken every day.

That's a totally different scenario 🙄

The OPs' husband took dirty pots and put them in the sink, OP took them out of the sink, carried them all the way upstairs and put them on a bedroom cabinet. That's just weird. Carting them all over the house was skivving.

@Bluntness100

I didn’t just take dishes upstairs to hide them from a friend coming round. There is a huge difference and that would be really weird

Well yes, it would be, we all agree, so why did you take the dirty dishes out the sink and go and hide them in your bedroom before your friend came?

Why be obtuse, you know very well there is much more to this.