Step son used my bath towel

[Green0911]

Want to gauge if IABU here.

My and my husband's towels are in the bathroom. Teenage SS keeps his in his room. We each have a hand towel and a bath towel. They all get changed every 3-4 days. When it came to changing them, I realised SS didn't have his towels in his room. He said he'd put them to be laundered a few days before. When I asked him which towels he'd been using in the meantime (he'd showered at least twice during this period), initially he claimed none, then admitted he'd used mine.

I blew a fuse. Couldn't believe he thought this was acceptable. Husband has laughed it off and is accusing me of being dramatic/blowing things out of proportion.

AIBU?

Bloody hell. Just buy some new towels so there's never a shortage.

I hope you didn’t actually ‘blow a fuse’ because that would be a way bigger issue.

You are being very silly and precious over a towel.

I share towels with my 17yo all of the time.
Neither of us has become poorly over it.

If you prefer to have your own towel, that’s fine.
But you don’t need to be so dramatic.
Just remind him that you like to have your own towel and to not use it in the future.

does he have a communicable disease?

Stop being so ridiculous. I swear Mumsnet is becoming full of more drama queens lately. Let it go. I don’t like sharing towels no but I certainly would flip my lid about it.

Good job you weren't born into the 60s or earlier then

Pretty sure many many others live in "a bubble of shared towels". Quite a few posters do and I know a lot of my family definitely share towels.

Obviously some people feel the need for their own towel but not sure it is how "most" people live

Very unusual as washing and drying them would have been one hell of a chore

I love my 14 year old, but he's a 14 year old lad - he's stinky and increasingly hairy, and is likely occasionally a bit slapdash when he washes. I can see why people would prefer not to share towels with teenage boys. It's never fun finding someone else's pubes in the towel when you're drying yourself.

If you want to live in your bubble of shared towels, fine. But the fact that hotels and other places leave towels out 'per person' shows it's how most people live.

Hotels also have housekeeping, room service and a 'do not disturb' sign for the door. Is that also how most people should live? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Although, come to think of it, it has happened when staying with some people (not that many), we have been issued with specific towels: "Your towels are on your bed," says son-in-law's mum ... we always considered this a little quirk of (probably bourgeois, class-based) light-hearted hospitality to be smiled at but not at all taken seriously.

I thought it was perfectly normal to give guests their own towels when they stay. I remember my gran doing it when I went to stay with her as a child (early 60's) and friends' parents doing it when I stayed with them when I was in my teens (70's). And friends still do it now. My family are all working class, and we grew up on a dead rough council estate.

How weird of you. We share towels all the time. There’s no such thing as “my” towel.

We have our own towels here but the main reason is so each towel has the chance to hang and dry between uses. If everyone uses the same towel it's always going to be soggy and ineffective at drying. I can't say I would be all eeewww and ick about someone drying their clean, freshly washed body on my towel, though I would be annoyed to find it soggy when I wanted to use it.

Blowing a fuse is a total overreaction. Just make sure the lad has towels available for use. Also suggest everyone has a towel rail in their bedroom for their bath towels, this makes it harder to mix up. We only keep a hand towel (shared but frequently changed) and face flannels (individual but different colours per person) in the actual bathrooms.

We do too. Towels are on the heated towel rail and no-one has ownership. Guests get their own. I leave a little pile on their beds. We wash the collective bathroom towels every 3 days or so.

I think that was pretty unusual. Not sure when exactly you are talking about but when I was a child (born 1954) I am pretty sure each household member did not have their own towels.

For my family that would have meant 5 towels and for quite a few of our neighbours it would have meant 6, 7 or even more (13 in one case).

We didn't have a washing machine and neither did our neighbours so that would have been a lot of washing.

Ds did this for years and it only truly bugged me because the towel would then disappear into his room. We were always lighthearted and laughed about it whilst asking him to stop. He hardly doesn it now.

I was born in 1954 and we always had our own towels.

I think it is on Mumsnet, where people don't answer the phone and hide behind the sofa when someone knocks on the door 😆

Surely he would use that after a bath or a shower to dry himself.....sounds like he would only use it if beng personaly hygienic!
Are you this much of a control freak in other aspects of his life?
Sounds like a good way to ruin a relationship

Then your mum mustn't have minded all that washing and mangling (even if it was on the washing machine!)
Or were you really posh with a twin tub? (I think it was the early 60s when we got one)

I read it that instead of getting a fresh one he just used one that was hanging up. Which was the OPs. Which is a bit yucky

@CustardySergeant how often were they used and washed? Washing machines weren’t the same as nowadays and not as common

Of grow up

It never occurred to me that people use towels multiple times. We have a pile in the airing cupboard and wash after every use (except hand towels) and nobody has a specific towel just for them. I wash towels at 60 degrees so don’t really worry about it. Op can you not just wash towels after each use if it bothers you so much?

Oh hush. I'd be pissed off of my adult sons used my towel and dried their arse crack with it.

And I made them 😂