Disgusting or Not?

[BargingOnBy]

My partner has the habit of washing his hands and his arms up to the elbows at the kitchen sink and then drying them with the hand towel in the kitchen. He has very hairy arms.

AIBU to think this is disgusting and the hand towel in the kitchen should only be used for drying hands, not other hairy body parts?

I don’t feel that it is hygienic to handle food after I have washed my hands and dried them on the same hand towel that he has used.

But she is shaming him. Having OCD (if that's even what is going on here) is not an excuse to do that.

It definitely is worth my time and effort because I thought I was being reasonable and I’ve now seen that almost all the other posters disagree with me.

You're supposed to clean your forearms to maintain good food hygiene, aren't you?

What would you rather he do, OP - not wash them, or use something different to dry them?

No, @Fargo79 was quite clear that she would end a relationship with a man who thought her body was disgusting and unhygienic. As, I imagine, would most people.
At no point in her comment she said anything about towels.

If someone told me that my perfectly normal arms were so disgusting that they didn't want me to use their tea towel to dry them, yes I'd end the relationship. It's what it symbolises.

Nope not single.

From a food hygiene perspective you ideally shouldn’t wash your hands in the kitchen sink, but of course we all do. Forearms are not different in terms of cleanliness, in fact likely cleaner, so it seems that your problem is his arm hair on the tea towels. Have 2 tea towels out, a fluffy one for drying hands/arms and a smooth one for drying washing up etc and then it won’t matter if he gets an arm hair on the tea towel, plus your residual hand germs won’t be wiped on the dishes.

FWIW my DP was weirded out by me using his bathroom hand towel to dry my hair. I thought he was annoyed at me, maybe for getting hair on the hand towel, but he was actually just “ugh, we dry our hands on that after washing them when using the toilet”. Erm. So they’re clean hands, yes?! But he still said I should have just got a new one out for my hair. 🤷🏻‍♀️

When surgeons are about to perform surgery they wash their arms up to the elbow and then dry them. I expect some of them have hairy arms.

I would have said that he should use something other than the kitchen hand towel to dry his forearms but I appreciate that I am being OTT based on the responses to this thread.
FWIW, I have never thought I had OCD but I have had other severe MH issues most of my life.

Yeah, why not it's a towel

Does your other half work in healthcare by any chance ?

I have to employ hand hygiene which means wash to the elbows and no sleeves beyond my elbows. When I wash my hands in real life it’s my forearms too . Might get odd looks

If you're being neurotic enough about cleanliness that even Mumsnet thinks you're being batshit it may be time to seek help.

Seriously though, what do you think he's going to have on his just washed arm hair that is any more gross than on his hands?

Nope, he works in IT

Interesting. How far would you take that logic? Is it ok to wash his armpits and dry them using the kitchen hand towel?

If he washed his pits properly with soap and rinsed them then yes. Why not?

More interested in how far you seem to be taking it. He isn't washing his arm pits. Get some perspective seriously.

Most are amazed you think yanbu!

It's a kitchen hand towel, not the tea towel. Arm pits no

🤣🤭🤣🤭
The question is do I apologise to him or just try to be less batshit about it in the future?

But his arms would be clean when uses the towel? Do you not like sharing bath towels with him either?
I honestly don't see the issue. If he was washing his cock and balls in the kitchen sink I'd find it somewhat bizarre, but arms, nah! Totally fine.

No. Just put a different towel out for him if you want the other hand towel kept separate. It's clearly a trigger for you that may be worth exploring.

That made me laugh

Both, I would gently suggest! We all have things that our nearest and dearest do that send us batty. Your DH probably clenches at some of your behaviours!
Not a hill to die on if you can help it!

We have a large range of colour-coded towels with a diagram (also colour-coded) to indicate which towel is to be used for which part of the body. Obviously we use flannels for knees and elbows as even a hand towel would be overkill for those small areas.

There is a light-hearted scale of 'fines' imposed if you are caught using the incorrect towel/body part combination. The accrued fines are used to buy replacement towels (and flannels) when necessary.

In the context of OCD around hygiene, people generally understand that the anxious person isn’t intending to shame them, they have a medical condition that causes them to be paranoid about germs. In a situation like that, there is no shame or resentment, you just adapt in a way to keep the sufferer’s OCD down,

I’m tempted to send him the link to this thread but he might use it against me in future if I complain (am being batshit crazy?) about something else in future.

😂