If you ask your DH/DP to stop doing something, do they?

[IHate]

Not the big stuff, just the everyday “please don’t do X, it’s annoying” category of domestic crimes.

A friend was recently ranting about her husband using her very expensive face cream. Abandoning his usual pleasant and reasonable persona, he apparently goes in like a man digging trenches, scoops out half the pot, and leaves the lid off so it congeals into some sort of luxury spackle. I said, “Have you asked him to stop?” and she looked at me as though I’d proposed witchcraft. Then she said, quite seriously, “That wouldn’t work.”

In our house, if one of us does something the other dislikes, we say so, the offender stops, and life goes on. But it seems this is not how all relationships operate.

So:

YABU: I wouldn’t ask and/or they wouldn’t stop if I did

YANBU: It really isn’t that complicated

If you start chucking his shoes outside he might get the message

😂He's still alive - to my knowledge! He's lucky! Worst thing is, he had his own computer, but his game ran slower on it, so he decided to use mine instead! Honestly he is a pig - he will never change!

Well, it depends what it is. With the example you gave about the face cream, yes, I’d ask him not to do it and he would stop doing it.

I think some things that people ask their partners not to do are just a case of one person trying to impose their arbitrary choice on another with no regard for the other person’s equally valid preference, though.

Yep, this is my husband exactly. Let's say it really puts a strain on things (from my point of view anyway) and does often make me wonder if I can live with this for the rest of my life!

Oh my gosh sorry to hear it but also glad I’m not the only one

My kids' dad wouldn't even acknowledge (apart from sometimes to argue about how right he was and how wrong I was) that I had spoken. Sometimes he'd stare at me as though he could see my mouth was flapping but I was speaking Icelandic or something. Because he did not see any reason why he should stop or start doing something, after all, it was only me being inconvenienced...

My DH used to leave his running shoes just outside the front door and I would always trip over them {there's a step down).
I was constantly either moving them or tripping over them. In the end I said that the next time they tripped me up I'd throw them into the hedge. I did. He stopped. But that only works if your DH has just developed a lazy habit, not if he's an abusive bastard.
In your case I'd be getting my ducks in a row.

My husband would never treat any of my stuff badly like the example in the OP.

We do have a reoccurring argument over the dishwasher, though. He says I don't clean the stuff sufficiently before loading. There's no food debris, plates are rinsed. it's cups that have had coffee/juice that we clash over. I say his way is inefficient (using loads of hot water and scrubbing everything). The argument happens when I'm loading the dishwasher and he starts inspecting the cups and taking them out.

He also claims not to like chocolate but eats mine

Apparently dishwashers work better with debris on the plates. Something about how the detergent is designed to work.

😂😂😂😂

Men can be children!

Honestly it depends what is the subject for mine…took me years for him to stop some stuff only to start new ones 🥸

I am pretty sure he does the same 😏

I have read and said this, he's adamant it's wrong. He's in a kind of related trade so gets very tetchy. I don't care how he does it but I won't change my method, and when he starts removing things I walk away and tell him thanks for taking over.

I have a very rock n roll lifestyle 😅

He would definitely try. And I definitely try not to do things he has asked me to stop. We are both fallible humans though, so inevitably we piss each other off by forgetting sometimes.

No! I've asked him countless times to cease and desist with various irritating crimes, but nope, it's like I've never spoken. Please use a plate for toast, don't wander round dropping crumbs, butter and jam on the laminate floor. Can you wipe the toast crumbs off the board, not just leave them there. (For this reason I refuse to use that board, as when he does wipe it, it's with his hand into the kitchen bin, I'm the only one that properly cleans it with the rest of the work tops!) Please stop making that awful clicking noise (I have no idea how he does it, but the first time I pulled him up on it and said stop clacking your teeth, he said it wasn't his teeth!!! Figure that one out!)
Honestly, I really don't know why I'm married, each passing year something else adds to the list that annoys me! But 35 years down the line, I'm still here, talking to myself! 🤣

Yes I asked ex. No he didn't stop.

ExDP wouldn't stop doing things when asked - which is partly why he is now my ex.

One of his favourite tricks was to mess up something that I had just cleaned and then not clean it.

My husband is crap at putting stuff away. So when i had enough of all of his shit being left everywhere I bagged it all up and took it to his work and dumped it in the kitchen where he works. 6 bags. He has never done it since.

My partner tries to stop. And it’s often not enough and causes an argument, but he does try. And I can tell he tries. Or he doesn’t for a while and then forgets and goes back to his easier way of doing it.
for example, leaving washing on the floor, or glasses around the house, or he likes to keep a toilet roll around the house to blow his nose. I hate all these things and it irritates me, I ask him to stop frequently and he does try to. But often he reverts back, so then I ask again. So I hear what you’re saying, but equally it’s not as simple in my house and just saying please don’t do that. 😂 but not out of malice or anything horrible. Just general laziness or forgetfulness.

This sounds like abuse

My DH is ND in a variety of fun ways that mean

a) he’s never fully listening
b) he can’t remember any conversation he ever has with anyone unless it’s amusing or about his special interests
c) he will either agree to stop doing something annoying & instantly forget the conversation, or will deny he’s ever done the thing, because he doesn’t really remember much of what goes on in daily life

He’d never use anything as ammunition - because he’s not malicious, but also because he wouldn’t remember even if he wanted to be malicious.

It annoys the SHIT out of me when people say, ‘well, have you asked him to stop?’

Yes, for about 20 years now, in about a thousand different ways, and yes we’ve had couples therapy, and yes I’ve read every book about fair play in relationships / mental load / effective communication in couples / and none of it works if the other party genuinely can’t remember anything from one moment to the next.

Asking DH to stop doing something is about as effective as asking someone with early stage dementia.

If you don’t live with someone ND you can’t really understand the extent to which working memory and autobiographical memory can be impaired in someone who gives the outward appearance of being high functioning.

Gosh that all sounds eerily familiar. My DH hasn’t had a ND diagnosis and there’s been no couple’s therapy to illuminate matters. Does yours also look at you sometimes as if you are a mad-woman talking double-Dutch; sort of startled - goggle-eyed with mouth wide?! We have “joked” that I really need to warn him I am about to speak to him. Mine retired recently from a big job and a. I am seeing a lot more of him so my patience is more tested (and I am post-menopausal) and b. I have been wondering if he’s gone into a sort of “sleep mode” as a response to being released from decades of work demands and pressure.

Depends on the ask. He stopped taking heroin but he still needlessly uses the tumble dryer on sunny days.

Yep. Lots of the looking straight through me, or fixing me with a completely blank or unintentionally thunderously angry-looking expression - which can be quite chilling and scary at times.

Most of the time he has his headphones on, immersed in his various projects, unavailable for interaction of any kind. 100% in sleep mode when he’s not doing his hobbies, and the rest of are are just a kind of inconvenient background irritation.

I have just had words about leaving the expandable hose still turned on.. it’s probably the 4th time I have mentioned he isn’t turning it off enough.

but he isn’t doing it to annoy me, rather because the hose decreases in length as it runs out of water, he just thinks it’s that. It does take its time though and off he goes to his next project.

I love this! I'm going to do the same. My dh is a petty at times. He rearranges the washing after I've hung it on the airer ir the radiator or sometimes as I'm doing it! Seriously! What man does that? Are any usually that bothered??!! Think he'll be taking a few more jobs over than he thought he would. Excellent.😅🤣😂

My husband may or may not stop doing things I ask him not to . For example, after I have gone to bed at night ( quite late - usually after 11.30pm) he will make himself sandwiches, or eat cake or crisps. Next morning we wake up to no bread, no crisps etc. Totally unnecessary . He’ll also eat ‘more than his share’ of something, eg if a six pack of crisps will eat 4 packs and then claim no one else was eating them - mainly because they don’t get a chance to!

If I buy myself a pack of sweets & don’t finish it then he often will. If I leave anything in the car - sweets, gum, loose change - he’ll use it . He will also continue to use my things like shampoo, body/ face wash and even perfume. I like quite neutral, almost masculine scents which means he will sometimes use them too I’ve discovered. He has all these things himself, but still uses mine so I end up going through them a lot quicker than I would if only I was using them. I think he just doesn’t like being told / asked . It’s as if he thinks he has a right to these things - whether he’s paid for them or not! I just hate the disrespect of it . I don’t do that to his things .
In other ways he’s great - def not the husband from hell, but very stubborn.