Husband ill, but messing up house

[Mumof118]

Husband is poorly. A bad cold. Temperature. Sinuses all stuffed up. Headache etc. I leave him on the sofa and clean the house without him today, letting him rest.

I finish cleaning and he decided to get showered and dressed. Decides to shave in the freshly cleaned bathroom getting hairs everywhere. Doesn’t since the soap suds off the bath screen so the bubbles are drying to the glass.

Comes upstairs, sits on the bed to put his socks on. Doesn’t straighten up the bed and then walks across the carpet leaving tiny black bits of old sock.

Goes into en-suite and brushes his teeth, getting toothpaste spit droplets all over the mirror and shower door. Leave wet towel hanging over my display white towels.

Now I feel really angry. Took me ages on my day off to do all of the cleaning by myself. I work full time so value the weekends and am pissed off that I’m now cleaning up after him.

DH says - the house is to be lives in. Then tries to hug me.

Who’s being unreasonable?

🤣 laughing because this is my life, I understand your pain because I have toddlers and a messy husband and all I want is a clean house but it’s so impossible for longer than 10 minutes, drives me insane sometimes. Although my rule is that you have to stay in bed when your not well, I’m not the most sympathetic and you ain’t lying on my couch with your germs making the place look untidy!

What are ‘display white towels’ ? Mind you in my house most of the towels can be classified as ‘dog towels’.

This has to be a joke! Someone who always pulls their weight is ill and doesn’t smooth out the duvet after sitting on the bed! Get a grip and get a life while you’re at it.

He would not be sick he would be dead🤣🤣🤣 when I clean the house I expect it to be kept clean at least for a few hours. If my husband starts wrecking I ask him how would he feel if he cut the grass and twenty minutes later it was back the same length!

Not at all, I get it (I'm also a bit OCD!). It winds me up when I've cleaned the bathroom and I'm not the first person to use it afterwards - it's like my 'reward'.. unreasonable and ridiculous?, yes, but that's how I feel 🤣🤣🤣

Apologies about my earlier flounce. I was getting upset by the insinuation that I was a bad wife and unreasonable person for having display towels 😂

Ive never given much thought to the towels before. Having nice white fluffy towels in the bathroom looks cosy and clean. I enjoy this. Neither DH or DS (yes, I already have a child) have ever mentioned them or seemed bothered by them.

DS likes a clean towel each day because he suffers with IBS/IBD. He does not feel hygienic using the same towel twice. I dry my body, then my hair with my towel. My hair is very thick and long and hairs pull out in the towel and get caught in the fibres. So I don’t like to use that on my body again or I end up with hairs everywhere. EVERYWHERE. DH will use his 2-3 times, so we have a hook for it on the bathroom door. Has always worked well.

I remember the midwife coming to my house when DS was a tiny baby, laughing and telling me that the house wouldn’t stay like this for long. (Very neat and clean). DS is now 18 and I still keep our home immaculate, because that’s how I’m comfortable. I will never have another child as DH is now sterile (not by choice).

We don’t have pets. That is by choice. We all work and would not have time for them. We won’t ever get a pet. So just the three of us.

I understand that some people may think there’s more to life and enjoy a lived in home, full of kids, pets and no worries about display towels. I completely get that, but that’s just not me. At the weekend, the pressure of working full time and doing all the chores myself got the better of me and I became a little stressed.

Anyway, DH is feeling much better, which is the main thing and a few glasses of Moscato ensured I didn’t stay irate over the cleaning for too long.

Glad he's feeling better OP. I'm sorry you got such a lot of stick about the towels, it's just not something I've encountered before. Mind you, our bathroom is so small, there's hardly enough room for the towels we use 😂. I am concerned that I've inadvertently used someone else's display towels though 🙈

DH does it with shaving all the time leaving stubble on the windowsill, the basin and the bathroom floor. I know he would insist he doesn't but it drives me mad! He doesn't really share the cleaning anyway. I know that the last time he cleaned a bathroom was 2 years ago because it was that momentous!!

This is why I don't have massive sympathy for birds attacking DH plants or when he gets annoyed that the cats poo in some freshly dug soil! 😄
I don't have display towels though, I've never heard of the concept.

@Mumof118 does the 18yo help with chores? How did you cope with toys when they were little or were they not allowed to keep anything out?

We had an almost permanent car race track round our lounge rug together with a Lego town when DS was little.

Towels are not meant to 'make the bathroom look pretty'.
Towels are for using; they are not early Matisse paintings.
Do you have loo paper for decoration?

Display towels 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Sat there gathering dust 🤢

I wouldn’t mind if a guest used my display towels ☺️ They do get washed every so often to keep them bright and fresh anyway.

The towels we use are all either grey so hair dye doesn’t notice (that’s me) or are old disney beach towels, so they wouldn’t look nice hanging up. I’d prefer guests used the display ones to those 👍

yet she or her husband won't use a "normal" towel more than once due to being unhygienic 🤷‍♀️🤣😱

The 18yo isn’t too helpful, unless nagged. But this is fairly recent. When he was little he was super tidy! I didn’t need to tell him to put things away, he just did. We had a big tall boy cupboard with different sections for his books, toys etc in the living room, and he had a train set on a wheeled board that pulled in and out from under the sofa. I didn’t mind him making a ‘mess’ and would just pop everything away after bedtime. We did painting and messy play in the kitchen on a mat. Again all cleaned away after bedtime.

I do remember getting home from Tesco once and DS was playing with fresh beetroot on the carpet, whilst his dad was completely oblivious.

Who says? 😉
Display towels work for me.

Am pleased and proud to say that the towels I use are display towels as in fresh and nice, but then I am single and live on my own.

No, they do have to be washed every one to two weeks to avoid this. And then they get folded and popped on the towel warmers, where they finish drying and make the bathroom smell gorgeous.

I wouldn’t use a dusty towel on my body. And if you read my posts, right at the start I explained that even the display towels have to be washed regularly to keep them bright and fresh.

That's my point; they DON'T work; they are just for display, not using.
Shops have display items, to sell to customers; you presumably don't live in retail premises.
Washing them after one use is so ecologically unsound too.

Ahh. We could never use white towels in my house. I’d get them covered in hair dye. DH would get them covered in blood from biting the skin around his nails all the blooming time, and DS would probably be ok, but white is a challenge to keep nice. Our useable towels are mainly grey, but white looks better in the bathroom ☺️

So you wash some towels are single use and you regularly wash other towels that have never been used? Is this how you do most of your laundry?

Both ways are such a waste. one to the environment and other why have stuff in your house not used ?? both a complete waste
life too bloody short

@venus7

But I want them to function for decorative purposes and they do that.

I have explained that DS will not use the same towel twice as he suffers with IBS/IBD and would not feel clean.

I use a towel for my body, then I use it to dry my hair. It is no good for another body dry after this. It’s full of hair.

DH will use his towel a few times.

Bedding once a week.
Jeans every 2-3 washes depending on if they are clean and how long they were worn and where they were worn.
Shirts and tops/jumpers. Prob every 2 wears except white ones, which are washed each wear as they don’t stay clean.
My husbands tracksuit - about once a week 😂 as he won’t let me have it.
Bed clothes every 2-3 wears.
Undies - after one wear.
I would think that’s fairly average?

I have a brown towel for hair dye purposes!