AIBU to be pissed off by the sheer level of laziness in my home

[Akiddleydiveytoo]

OK, full disclosure, I can be guilty of being a little bit lazy at times but fucking hell - my family can turn it into an Olympic sport 🤬. Here are some examples (for context, I live with my DH and our 2 DDs (13 & 16)).

1. DD1s (only) chore is to empty and load the dishwasher which she has to be nagged and nagged to do Every. Single. Day. As a result my kitchen is ALWAYS full of dirty dishes. Occasionally I will get fed up and do them myself (as I'm sick of seeing dirty dishes everywhere and I actually need to free up some workspace to prepare dinner) but I know that by doing that, all I'm teaching her is that if she leaves it long enough I'll do it.

1. Similarly, DD2s (only) chore is to empty the bins and take the recycling out. Again, despite repeated nagging this gets put off and put off until we're playing bin Jenga and we have empty tins and bottles etc all over the kitchen.

1. Nothing ever gets put directly into the bin. Last night we had a rare MaccyDs and DH plated all of our food out and just left the empty food wrappers on the kitchen worktop - less that 2ft from the bin!

1. Both DDs pull everything out of their wardrobes when deciding what to wear and just dump them on the floor. When I ask them to tidy up their rooms they just scoop up all of their (unworn, washed and ironed) clothes off the floor and put them back in the dirty laundry basket so they don't have to hang them back up again.

1. DH is completely incapable off lifting the lid on our laundry bin to put his dirty clothes in and just leaves them sitting on the top which means that when I have to put my dirty clothes in there I either have to put his in there as well or just lift up the lid and let his clothes just fall on the floor (which I've started doing more and more often but it doesn't make a difference - they just stay on the floor for a week).

1. All our clean towels and bedclothes get stored in our airing cupboard where most of the shelves are above my head beyond my reach. I keep a little step ladder in there so I can put stuff on the higher shelves but this often goes walkabout. In these cases, I usually leave the clean towels/bedclothes on our bed until I locate the ladder to put them away. DH will go to bed early and, instead of putting the stuff away (as he's over a foot taller than me and can reach the shelves easily) will just move the stuff over to my side of the bed and go to bed. He does this with anything that might be left on the bed during the day (he always goes to bed first) e.g. it was DD2s birthday the other week and she opened her presents on our bed and left most of them there all day (as we went out for the day). Sure enough, when I went to bed they were all neatly moved over to my side of the bed and DH was snoring away on his side.

1. Our spare room is in desperate need of decorating. We haven't painted it once since we moved in 13 years ago. We bought new wardrobes for the room a couple of years ago so said to DH we need to paint the walls before putting the wardrobes up. I go to work for the day and come home to find DH has painted the wall BUT only the patch that will be covered by the wardrobes - the painting literally stops halfway down the wall. DH said he just wanted to get the wardrobes up and that he'd finish the painting at a later date - that was 2 years ago!

I could go on and on but i won't. I really am despairing, honestly. The sheer level of laziness is really starting to piss me off. I'm generally a pretty laid back, easy going sort but years of this shit and constantly living in a messy, dirty (as I can't get to any surfaces to actually clean them) house has turned my into a whinging, nagging harridan which I hate.

So make me feel better - tell me your stories of lazy fuckery.

I agree. That man is not oblivious. He knows exactly what he's doing.
I suspect he doesn't carry on like that at work.

I agree, if you stay on top of them they do eventually get it, but your kitchen is such a mess in the interim. And I agree with the poster above who says actually the core problem here is the DH, who doesn't do HIS part. Honestly if he's treating OP like a skivvy, what do you expect of the teens? They're just following his lead! So I think OP needs to have that conversation with her DH: the girls aren't doing their chores because you don't do yours and instead you treat me like it's my job to do everything.

I do think when a kid gets one chore "down" that it is sometimes time to switch to another chore, so they learn that new skill. You can add chores, if you feel they can handle it, but some kids actually if you add chores they'll just lose track of their schoolwork as the total load is too much for them, so they need the old chore to be removed from their schedule and a new chore added instead. I think the number of chores is really going to be different for every kid.

I think it's also really helpful if they can learn the skill of tidying up after themselves. So the example of putting away the McDonalds wrappers is a good one. If everyone in the household tidies up their own stuff (and I would include putting away clean laundry in this) then the burden on the housekeeper is much reduced. When I clean my own kitchen, the first thing I do is just put things back where they belong: plastic wrap, kitchen foil, oven gloves, used napkins in trash etc. It makes a big difference visually but I confess it also gives me the rage. Why can't the person who took out the plastic wrap just... put it back? (looking at you, husband). And if everyone threw away their own empty toothpaste tubes, just think how much extra time I would have to surf Mumsnet!!!!!!

I know ADHD was floated earlier and as someone with ADHD who struggles with housework I can say this. I would leave things lying around and do half of jobs because that's how I'm wired. But I adore DH and it upsets him so I force myself, and it is force, to finish things or put things away. It's not calculation, it's my brain.

Which is why good boundaries are so important. DH has them and it becomes a red line, like at work, so I have to.

DD also has ADHD and I agree with @EarringsandLipstick (and not with @ToK1 ) that the message isn't 'do it or else' it's 'we're all part of a family and that's the price'. DD doesn't love doing her chores but she does them, and without moaning. I'm very Mary Poppins about it. All spit spot. If she mithers, it's 'you know you would have already finished, right?' not 'I'LL TURM OFF THE WIFI'. However with a lazy arse DH it's very hard to get the kids to do it.

People who are not neurotypical can and do learn habits and make the effort not to treat others with disrespect.

Absolutely. I will say that demand and rejection sensitivity can make it difficult for partners. Expressing sadness rather than anger at the behaviours is helpful. I'd go quite a long way to avoid DH feeling sad.

If DH didn't have boundaries and just did it, I'd probably let him.

I don't like the rush to excuse behaviour with a diagnosis of ADHD or similar @MrsTerryPratchett .

You might be right but again you may not and either way it does not excuse his treatment of his wife.

Exactly, @PlacidPenelope . Let's not excuse men like this.

I don't think I did excuse it. Just gave strategies.

In fact I specifically said I do expect better from me and my DD. It works.

@MrsTerryPratchett

I'm obviously missing something

I havent said do it or else.

I've said the same as you. Do it as we're all part of a family and thats the price of living here.

If you dont pay the price then you don't get the rewards of living as part of a family

And obviously that applies to everyone in the family

Also, no where did the op say either the kids or the dad had adhd

It is possible to just be lazy and disrespectful and not ND

I just see a danger with people saying it could be ADHD the wife, as in this case, believing it without any formal diagnosis because people on here have said they are like this and then feeling guilty and just accepting it and that concerns me.

If her husband has ADHD then that needs to be formally diagnosed and, as you did say, not used as an excuse to get away with his behaviour.

You did say that you forced yourself, @MrsTerryPratchett , it's true. However, I do think that men on these threads often get a bit of a pass on these grounds.

I agree with you @Maireas, far too often I have seen it touted that a lazy man must have ADHD and the OP then just accepts that could be the case and carries on carrying the load whilst feeling guilty for bringing the problem up in the first place and that, to me, doesn't help. If it is a possibility it needs to be diagnosed properly not just taken as read because some internet randoms said so, that is my concern. It is far to easy for posters on here to throw out various possible diagnoses and they don't have the all the information nor qualifications to do that, you see it time and time again regarding older people - they've probably got dementia/Alzheimers, these like ADHD are medical diagnoses and only those medically qualified to give such a diagnosis should be doing it AFTER assessing the person in question.

I hope OP comes back, it would be good to know if she's managed any progress with her husband.

@PlacidPenelope and @Maireas DD would tell you that after we made her aware of her diagnosis (a while after she was actually diagnosed) she tried once to use it as an excuse. I said "nice try, we just have to work harder". I do also work with the hyper focus aspect as well, like catching the wave and do all the work when the fancy takes you.

Now, hilariously, she does the same to her ND friends. When they use their diagnosis as an excuse she tells them off. I've created a monster.

I do agree the script can be 'awww poor lamb, do it for them' which is bad for the relationship AND the ND person.

You sound eminently sensible @MrsTerryPratchett you have certainly got it sussed!

I hope you realise I wasn't having a dig at you personally, it was just a general observation.

Spot on, @MrsTerryPratchett ! Too often I hear this as an excuse for bad behaviour at school. Kudos to you 👍

It's a permanent work in progress!

I would like your daughter in my class 😊

Thanks!

Her teacher loves her. He's very old school!

Sympathy op. I've lost it today. Dd was meant to take HER cat to her dads to stay for a week as we out having building work done and he needs to be out of the way. She didn't bother. Came back to find everyone out and the back door wide open and side door unlocked.
Washing everywhere. Dh had made lunch and left everything out the fridge. It's
Beyond laziness. It's like incompetence. I usually can't get aerated about it but for christs sake to not even bother to shut and lock a door in an empty house is next level.

Hi all, sorry, didn't mean to write and run but it's been a busy day.

I've read all your responses and there are some good suggestions that I will definitely put into practice. For a start, the DD chores will be changing. I never really thought about bins and dishwasher as being 'foundation chores' but that does make sense. If they are not done then it does have a huge knock on effect to everything else so I'll be changing their chores to something that impacts me less. I'm thinking maybe making them do their own laundry and getting them to clean their bathroom (they have almost exclusive use of the family bathroom as DH and I use our en suite and the state they leave it in is disgusting).

In terms of DH, he really isn't as bad as he's come across in this thread. He does help out around the house but housework just isn't really important to him. He just doesn't seem to care about the dirty dishes and overflowing bins. It's just not on his radar. Saying that - he does need to step up and make more of an effort, like @MrsTerryPratchett describes. I've been letting him get away with it for far too long.

As it happens (and the reason why I've been so busy today) we're about to have some building work done on our house which means we'll be in a state of chaos for the next 6 weeks. After these 6 weeks, however, I will have a lovely new house layout with a lovely new kitchen and I'll be buggered if I'm going to let the lazy arses I live with mess it up.

I've therefore got 6 weeks to come up with a plan and whip them into shape. Wish me luck...

Good luck!!!

It's a great time to set new boundaries and enforce them diligently.

Yes, good luck - however "not on his radar" is a cop out. He's an adult. Rubbish goes in bins, dirty clothes in the hamper, not on top. You're going to have to put a stop to his ludicrous items on the bed malarkey as well. Not on.
Update us when it's all running smoothly 😉!

Third the good luck wishes OP but agree with Maireas - not on his radar doesn't fly, where does he think rubbish goes if not the bin. Stand firm, don't accept excuses, you are supposed to be married to a grown up, an equal, you are meant to be a team.

Both of you need to model what is acceptable to your children, what standards are expected and that you will be valued and respected and not treated with such disdain.

As MrsTerryPratchet says set firm boundaries and they must be enforced.

Look forward to the update!

But… why? Why do you bring the toilet paper when they call? Why do you sacrifice your free time to do laundry and ironing?

Like sometimes I think a lot of mums definitely do this martyr thing. If my kids didn’t sort their laundry they wouldn’t go to their clubs because they’d have no ballet clothes/football kit/karate uniform. They would miss a practice and that would be that.

I mean of course if you could just throw your laundry aside and ‘tinker about’ playing games and exercising and then come home to neatly laundered and ironed clothes you would do it. But most of us know we have to wash our clothes or we’ll have no clean clothes. Why not just stop martyring yourself and let them sort themselves out?