Would this bother you?

[Tidyhousemessyhouse]

Regarding housework/mess. Would this bother you or am I being a bit obsessive?

Dh has come home from work at 5, we've both had to take the dc to separate hobbies this evening, I'd made dinner which just needed to be reheated. I'm going round just tidying up for the evening ready to settle down and in the bedroom dh has left tissues all over the bed and floor, all the drawers are left open, wardrobe doors left open, towel on the floor.

I'm doing nearly all the housework because I work part time and I'm just absolutely sick to the back teeth of people making a mess and not clearing up after themselves.

The dc aren't babies/toddlers anymore eldest is a teen and imo there's just no excuse anymore why we need to live in a mess. It creates more work (for me).

i imagine it would bother him if the OP never picked up his shit, and the house got messier and messier.
it doesn’t bother him because it gets cleaned up.

I think he just lives differently to you. You like everything neat and tidy. Him not so much. I think we need to meet half way.

I have and do call my DH and make him clean up both after himself and after the 3dc (under 5) if they've made a mess while in his charge.

Last week he had to clean down the utility sink which was covered in mud after he'd supervised the kids washing their hands. I waited 3 days for it to magically clean itself. I'll boss him quicker next time and he knows it.

Start with the things that annoy you the most and make his/their lives miserable until it's sorted. Then move on

@ReadyToMoveIt

Maybe, maybe not.

I've lived with an excessively tidy oh who got pissed off all the time if their 'standards' weren't kept up.

Its no fun.

I don't personally believe that I'm obsessively tidy, I have lived with someone like that. My ex was obsessive. He wanted the bed made in a certain way with perfect corners and would kick off if you sat on the bed and got it crumpled. He'd go round constantly plumping cushions and picking up bits that he could see in the carpet, he'd make us wash the pots before we could even eat the dinner we'd cooked.

I'm not like that dh is very untidy.

It's really difficult, when dh lived alone he'd let all his dishes pile up until there was nothing left, his washing all lived on the floor, dusting/cleaning of any sort just didn't happen, bedding simply never got washed/changed. So I suppose I knew what I was getting myself into.

I think after my ex dh who really was obsessive about cleaning dh was a relief.

yeah, I’m sure excessively tidy is as shit to live with as excessively messy.
All the people I know who have said they ‘don’t see mess’, just know that someone else will pick it up for them. So they don’t actually have to live in the mess anyway.

Yes I would find that very annoying

Interesting that you've gone from one extreme to another with partners.
But that's for a therapist to unravel.
A untidy oh would be a deal breaker.
And luckily I've never had one.
2 choices 'train' him to be responsible, or accept that who he is. ( and he picking up after him without resentment)

Pick it all up and pile it on his side of the bed. Or shove it in his wardrobe, no matter how filthy. Every fucking time

@ReadyToMoveIt

Well thats as much the person who picks it ups fault

I wasn’t assigning blame 🤷🏻‍♀️, it was just an observation.

If it's "hardly a huge mess", why the fuck can't he tidy it up?

1 million % this ^^

It is interesting isn't it, I never really thought too much about it.

There is no easy solution. Believe me over the years I've tried everything from leaving it to get really bad to bagging all his stuff up and dumping it on his side of the bed, to arguments, to just trying to accept it.

Like @ReadyToMoveIt says when you've just cleaned a room and someone comes along and dumps rubbish and stuff with seemingly no intentions of clearing it up, it's a real two fingers up and makes me feel like a skivvy.

I have adhd and much as I love a tidy house I just cannot achieve one. Im not saying your DH has adhd but that there is no moral virtue or better personhood in being a tidy person.

when you've just cleaned a room and someone comes along and dumps rubbish and stuff with seemingly no intentions of clearing it up, it's a real two fingers up and makes me feel like a skivvy.

And then you get women for whom it doesn’t occur to them to mind being everyone else’s skivvy, coming on to the thread to tell you there’s no issue.

Quite eye-opening, really.

I genuinely don’t think the OP is saying she is a superior person?

But she’s 100% more patient than me, that’s for sure, because I couldn’t live with someone like her DH.

OP, are you married to my husband too?! 😂

Is anything stopping you saying this to him? These exact words?

Do you both drive with separate cars? Go chuck it all in his car, or dump it somewhere that is his personal space that you don’t have to see, maybe his dirty clothes basket if you have separate ones. Or find a box in the garage and start putting everything in it, it would be a shame if the leftover tea in the cup he left lying around got mixed with the soggy tissues and ruined his good jacket but so be it.

yes it would piss me off because he’s creating more work for you and living like a slobby child.

@Tidyhousemessyhouse

And in all the years you've been arguing about this why hasn't he listened to you, that he makes you feel like a slave?

Does your DH get defensive when you confront him? You can try to acknowledge his efforts when he does clean up. If he forgets you can try to word it nicely, "I know you had a long day at work, but can you pick up the tissues with you get chance." Haha, it's kind of like a form of training really. But he does need help getting out of his habit of being messy as it seems he has always been that way. So it won't change overnight. You'd have to be patient.

Yes, it’s pisses me off too.
Get a box, put it by the back door and any shit they leave lying about (expensive, rubbish, it doesn’t matter) plonk in the box. Give them warning it’s what you are going to do. Once it’s all water damaged, they might start cleaning up.

Yes it'd bother me.
A bit of tidying up behind themselves should be expected of everyone in the household old enough to do so.

I totally empathise with you on this one OP, my DH is exactly the same. Unfortunately the only thing that improved it and his perspective is several blazing rows and getting really upset! It’s taken 3yrs of living together and he finally gets it and picks after himself (mostly!). He lived in squalor when we met (I’m not being unkind) he said he never really considered it a home as he was off out/away all the time so more a dumping ground and somewhere to put his head down. This should have rung alarm bells I know! We have/had very different standards on what we feel is an acceptable way to live but NOW he’s pretty well-trained and admits that he actually likes it tidy! Good luck!