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?

And I wouldn’t see the obsessive, single use of any towel item that has been touched by any part of a human body as something great in a partner either

Nah! Good try but blew a fuse is shouting etc!

not “I told little pet off”!

She proper lost it, even the DH laughed at her outburst.

Towels are for drying bodies that are clean

@BettyBardMacDonald

Where is it said that she "screamed"? Blew her fuse means it was the last straw and she told him off, not that she turned into a raving out of control maniac.

Well if she was totally Zen about it she wouldn’t have started a thread on Mumsnet about it. You don’t have to scream to make someone aware of your anger.

As has been said upthread, if you lose your shit about relatively small issues like this you diminish your authority over things that really matter. Fight the right battles etc.

It's the lack of situational awareness, consideration for others and basic competence that are evident here. We could ve talking about gobbling someone else's treat or failing to take off muddy shoes or using up all the petrol in the car.

The boy is sneaky, minging, lazy and doesn't care about the effect of his actions on others. He does what is easiest for him no matter how grotty. The same traits we hear about in grown men every single day on this forum.

And yet most women here rush to his defense instead of championing higher standards. Coddle the male! The boy must never have HIS feelings hurt!

Goodness me.

It’s not a waste if it bothers her and her towel being dirty is enough for her to blow up at a teenage boy so the obvious solution is to wash after use.

And the SM is hysterical and OTT and lacks anger control.

The DH is luckily more rational and able to risk assess.

You also seem to be getting angrier and angrier that you can’t bully people into agreeing with you!

Absolutely this!!

If DH blew a fuse over OP using his towel, we all know that not one poster would be defending him.

If you don’t like sharing towels that’s fine but it’s absolutely not ok to blow a fuse over it.

To think that it was only a couple of generations ago that people shared bath water.

Or her to practise anger control?

@BettyBardMacDonald minging, lazy and doesn’t care about their actions, could describe many a teenager, male or female.

Calmly, sorting out the issue is the way forward. We are not rushing to defend the male because he is male, but in all fairness some people’s ‘high standards’ are beyond ridiculous, wasteful and bordering on obsessive.

I get it's gross. But, he isn't tying to piss you off. Teenagers go around with their head in the clouds, totally self absorbed. They grow out of it eventually. With patience and reminders to be thoughtful.

I was that teenager, pissing my stepmother off no end, with my towel usage (hers, the baby's, anyone elses but mine, which would have been still damp on my bedroom floor from the previous use) I couldn't have cared less whose towel i was using, I just grabbed the nearest, driest one to me. I have become an adult who cares about towel hygiene.

This is one of those, it's annoying, but not a big deal situations if you ask me. Teenagers are very self centred, you'll keep getting very annoyed if you expect them to be any different.

Are you quite well? Your blood pressure over the past 12 hours on this thread must be through the roof.

Teenagers are still children. They need to learn. They do not need to learn by someone blowing a fuse. Maybe time to take a break? Haven’t you got to phone Sheridan?

Just when you think you've heard it all...
You are being completely ridiculous and petty. Grow up and give your poor stepson a break.

I wouldn't be comfortable with it either, but I don't think I'd get angry over it

What did he say when you apologised op, did he say it's ok we all have bad days?

Or you could just acknowledge that everybody has different thresholds. She felt violated understandably because that’s her personal boundary. Just because yours are different doesn’t mean you’re correct

Bidets aren't common here.

And in the house I grew up there was a separate loo with no sink...

Wrap your heads round that one!

I think he laughed as it wasn’t his towel. The op said he is fussy about his face towel.

I think in 70s and 80s bidets were a sign of being posh in the UK. Don’t think people used them though.

Well we have to agree to disagree then?

I was saying to the previous poster to acknowledge that it’s different boundaries!

Mine aren’t wrong, just different. Not sure why you’ve stated that to me? Quite odd really.

This is not my fight just saying what the OP said on a later post about his face towel being his due to having had acne in the past.

So you’re saying it’s ok for SS or DH to blow their fuse with OP?

OP could drink out of the wrong mug, rush upstairs to use the bathroom with removing her shoes or sit on the bed in her ‘outdoor’ clothes and if any of these things are DH’s or SS’s personal boundaries, you are saying that it’s justified for them to blow a fuse at her?

Most people would just ask that she doesn’t do it again, rather than blow a fuse over something that wasn’t malicious.