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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To want clean bedsheets?

81 replies

traffichater1 · 17/11/2024 12:40

Am I overreacting about this? So I’m not a germaphobe but I can be a bit funny about touching people and body contact with people generally - unless it’s my partner or DS.

My partner has stayed at mine all last week. His friend was travelling to the area and needed somewhere to stay so he left his keys for him and his friend stayed in his bed for maybe one or two nights. I’m not so sure. Yesterday my partner went back home and I followed him a few hours later. When I arrived, I asked him if he changed the bedsheets since his friend slept in them and he said that he did however I couldn’t see the old bedding that he would’ve taken off anywhere and it wasn’t in his washing machine. His wash basket is in the bedroom so I would’ve seen the bedding in it without having to dig around. So to sleep, I didn’t get underneath the covers and instead used an old blanket of mine which I’d bought over to his house a while back. My partner didn’t question this. He just every so often would make sure I’m covered by my blanket. Which indicates to me that he actually didn’t change the bedsheets because if he had he would’ve been insistent get into the bed as it’s clean bedsheets. I think it’s gross that he’s happy to sleep in bedsheets that his friend has slept in, however it’s his friend so he can do what he wants but for me that’s like sleeping in a hotel room that hasn’t been changed since the previous guests.

I’ve left now, but sent him a message saying that it bothered me. He hasn’t replied, but I’m curious to know if other people would have felt the same as me.

OP posts:
ComtesseDeSpair · 17/11/2024 12:46

I think people exist in a spectrum on this. It wouldn’t bother me, I’ve done enough camping and nightclubbing and shared beds and body fluids with enough people that I’m not particularly squeamish about other people’s skin or my sleeping arrangements. I certainly wouldn’t strip my bed because a friend had slept in it. But if I did feel as strongly as you and didn’t believe the sheets had been changed I’d have just gone home rather than make a song and dance about checking for sheets in the laundry and getting my own comfort blanket out and not letting the bedsheets touch me.

traffichater1 · 17/11/2024 12:48

I did want to go home but it was really late at that point and I didn't want to make a big deal out of it by going home, but it was eating me up inside lol.

OP posts:
Encanta · 17/11/2024 12:50

Why don’t you trust him?

Milknosugarta · 17/11/2024 12:52

Just to add to the ick factor, I've heard that scabies are rife just now, and you can pick them up from bedclothes. Sorry. 😯

User0311 · 17/11/2024 12:53

I wouldn't want to sleep in a bed someone else had slept in without being washed

modgepodge · 17/11/2024 12:54

This sort of thing bothers me too. I always change my guest bed sheets after someone has stayed the night (except my dad as he is the most common one, so he’ll probably be the next one too, but I’d then change it if MIL for example came next). I know most others don’t though (I always offer to strip beds and this is usually declined which tells me they’re probably going to leave them on) and I don’t like staying at others houses often for this reason!

Didimum · 17/11/2024 12:54

Everyone is entitled to their own levels on cleanliness standards, but no it wouldn’t have bothered me. It’s your partner’s home and bed so it’s up to him really unless you’re offering to change them yourself.

timetodecide2345 · 17/11/2024 12:56

You sound hard work op with your blankets and investigating of his laundry basket. You could change the sheets yourself perhaps?

traffichater1 · 17/11/2024 12:57

@Encanta with anything else I'll trust him 100% however he left mine quite late and then he went out almost immediately when he got back to his. When I got to his a few hours later, he was just arriving back also.

I didn't think changing the sheets would be a priority to him and then I didn't see any evidence of him changing the sheets. I felt like he was saying it just to put my mind at ease. I know that I'm being very over top of this but this is for me is one of those irrational preferences that I have and she can't understand how important it is to me.

OP posts:
Snoopybird · 17/11/2024 12:59

I’m not even close to a germaphobe, I am one of those people who will eat food off the floor and my kitchen is a disaster zone. But I am a bit funny about bedsheets. It’s not really about germs it’s just… I don’t know.
You wouldn’t wear another person’s worn clothes without washing them, would you? Not because of germs, but it just wouldn’t feel clean. I feel like that about bedsheets.

EdgeofSeventy · 17/11/2024 13:00

I wouldn’t have slept in the bed either, unless it had definitely been changed.
That's what would happen in my house.
But I would have asked 'can we change the bed?' Or gone home.

traffichater1 · 17/11/2024 13:00

I would have offered to change them, but he was already in bed and I was just sitting on a chair too anxious to ask him if he'd change the sheets, then I plucked up the courage and asked him and he said yes he had. For me to insist that I would change them when he said that he had already changed them, would have been weird. But in my head, I didn't believe him because where were the dirty sheets?

Raising this back, I feel like I need to apologise to him for being such a germ Afobe in this instance lol.

OP posts:
Ginkypig · 17/11/2024 13:01

You shouldn’t have left it. When you asked and you didn’t believe the answer you should have either said that then or left.

you shouldn’t have spent the evening there then at bedtime wanted to leave but by then its too late so you make a point of sleeping over the duvet (hoping he will then cop to not changing it or maybe even change it there and then) Then complain about it afterwards.

you are an adult so you need to deal with issues like one.

for what it’s worth though I agree, I wouldn’t want to sleep in a bed that someone else had unless it was someone close to me. (even then only certain people!)

TyneTeas · 17/11/2024 13:01

I'd be more bothered about him saying he had if he hadn't

OliviaRodrighost · 17/11/2024 13:03

TyneTeas · 17/11/2024 13:01

I'd be more bothered about him saying he had if he hadn't

I agree. The bedsheets thing is up to you to decide and I feel he took that decision away by lying to you about it. I just can’t stand being lied to.

Ginkypig · 17/11/2024 13:04

TyneTeas · 17/11/2024 13:01

I'd be more bothered about him saying he had if he hadn't

Also I agree with this!

lies in a relationship are not ok, this seems small but it’s an indication that he thinks it’s ok to deceive you to make his life easier.

monicagellerbing · 17/11/2024 13:06

I'm with you OP, that would gross me out too.

BadPeopleFan · 17/11/2024 13:06

Well I'm with you OP, no way would I want to sleep in a bed that some random bloke had slept in!
I would sleep in a bed that hadn't been changed if say my sister slept in it or one of my children but that's it.
I'm quite surprised that a lot of mnetters wouldn't be bothered, maybe because it's a hypothetical situation for them rather than being faced with the actual issue.

Lairymary · 17/11/2024 13:09

Encanta · 17/11/2024 12:50

Why don’t you trust him?

The evidence..... no dirty sheets to be seen.

Lourdes12 · 17/11/2024 13:13

I can go a long time without washing my sheets but I couldn’t sleep in the same sheets another person has slept in. It just gives me the ick plus it smells of the other person

traffichater1 · 17/11/2024 13:21

@Lourdes12 same - my sheets I can on occasion take a while to change them, I didn't even mind my partner taking a while as long as they don't smell. but if someone else has slept in it, it totally changes it all for me. I couldn't even sleep in unwashed sheets that my mum has slept in, and that woman birthed me.

OP posts:
Randomparking · 17/11/2024 13:22

Milknosugarta · 17/11/2024 12:52

Just to add to the ick factor, I've heard that scabies are rife just now, and you can pick them up from bedclothes. Sorry. 😯

This is true and scabies is not the only condition that can be picked up by sharing or using unwashed bedding.

olympicsrock · 17/11/2024 13:22

The biggest thing here is that your boyfriend is a liar!

niadainud · 17/11/2024 13:23

I wouldn't like this, and I wouldn't appreciate being lied to either.

Createausername1970 · 17/11/2024 13:33

I wouldn't be keen to sleep in someone else's bedding. My son had nits a few months ago. Hadn't had them for years, since he was in primary school. He started scratching about a week after he stayed over at a friend's house and kipped on friends bed.

And someone else has mentioned scabies.

I would also be massively annoyed that my partner lied about it.

I am not sure which is the most bothersome, the lying or the bedsheets.

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